Test framework RFC

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

For the next release of GNUstep we are moving the regression testing framework 
into the gnustep-make package so that it will be available wherever 
gnustep-make is installed.

We are also moving the testsuites for the base and gui libraries into those 
packages, so that when you get those source packages you will also get their 
regression tests and be able to run the tests once you build the code.

We will want to strongly encourage future bug reports and/or patches to be 
accompanied by testcases for addition to the testsuites.  These will serve two 
purposes:
1. We can run a testcase on OSX and on GNUstep to demonstrate a compatibility 
problem or to help debugging code etc.
2. Having the testcase added to the testsuites will prevent a problem from 
recurring in future releases.

Clearly, we want this all to work well in the next release, and need to polish 
any rough edges in the test framework and in the individual testsuites.

I've done a lot of work on trying to make the test framework simple, portable, 
easy to use and friendly, but this would now really benefit from feedback from 
other people, so please could you try it out.

To try it out you need to check out the current gnustep-make from svn trunk and 
configure/install it.
This should leave the relevant files in $GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES/TestFramework with 
the gnustep-tests script available in your PATH so that you can run it to 
execute tests (try 'gnustep-tests --help').
There are example testcases in the TestFramework directory, but you can also 
check out the base and/or gui library from svn trunk and try running the 
testsuites there, or you can check out the main testsuite directory from svn 
trunk and try all the tests.

What I'm looking for in the way of feedback at this point is help in improving 
user friendliness of the testsuite ... simplification rather than additional 
features, clearer documentation and explanation etc.  If people spot some huge 
glaring omission of important functionality then we might still have time to 
remedy it, but I'd rather any functional changes were to remove unnecessary 
complexity, not to add new features.

Also, I'd like the aim here to be more user friendly than other test frameworks 
... the idea is to make it as easy as possible for people who may have never 
used any regression testing system to help with GNUstep.  So we want simple 
english and clear terminology (to encourage people who are not native english 
speakers) rather than the use of terminology and concepts which are used by 
other systems.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to try tis stuff out.