How do you test visual programing languages?
from Eezyville@sh.itjust.works to programming@programming.dev on 18 Jun 2024 20:28
https://sh.itjust.works/post/21042636

So how do you guys test visual programming languages? These languages include Labview, Simulink, Snaplogic, Slang, etc. I ask because I’m working on improving the testing suite we use at my job for Snaplogic. The way we currently lest is we have a suite of pipelines that have certain snaps and we just run those pipelines and look for errors in a testing environment every release.

What I’m really trying to figure out is how to run Functional Tests (unit, integration, system) and Non-Functional Tests (security, performance). In a language such as Python this can be straight forward but in a visual language or a service offered by another company then it is a bit more difficult.

I am thinking of creating a custom test suite using the modules used in our pipelines and using Python to generate JSON and SQL data. Does anyone do something similar?

#programming

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brisk@aussie.zone on 18 Jun 2024 21:22 next collapse

Simulink has a concept called Test Harnesses which are models that isolate individual blocks for testing. The tests themselves are then driven programmatically from MATLAB

frankenswine@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 2024 22:33 next collapse

visually 🤭🤣

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 19 Jun 2024 00:07 collapse

Give 'em an occular pat down.

arthur@lemmy.zip on 18 Jun 2024 23:30 next collapse

I think the public that uses those tools usually don’t care about standard practices (yet?).

So congrats, you are on the forefront I guess.

Eezyville@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 2024 00:01 collapse

I’m just trying to get a raise bro

kehet@suppo.fi on 19 Jun 2024 09:28 next collapse

I tried MS Word a few times and decided that drag-and-drop UIs are not for me

JackbyDev@programming.dev on 20 Jun 2024 18:12 collapse

Tell me about it… I don’t even use visual editors for charts, I use Mermaid.js in mermaid.live

wargreymon@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 2024 12:45 next collapse

a service offered by another company then it is a bit more difficult.

Quit this job or ask for source code from the company, releasing a programming language closed-source is just terrible.

Eezyville@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 2024 19:36 collapse

lol I’m not quitting my job over this

wargreymon@sh.itjust.works on 20 Jun 2024 04:30 collapse

I am not contributing to closed source either, fuck billionaires

expr@programming.dev on 19 Jun 2024 17:46 next collapse

Visual… programming languages? Yikes.

Eezyville@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 2024 19:35 collapse

There are quite a few of them

Lorgres@lemmy.world on 20 Jun 2024 06:23 collapse

I was actually offered a Bachelor thesis topic by a company to write a test bench for a product in LabView.

From what they told me and my other engineering experience I’d suggest going with an approach similar to what’s used with HDLs. For unit tests create test benches in the language itself which call the functions you want to test with a predefined input (e.g. from a file) and then analyse and save the output.

You can extend this to obtaining other information as well, but tbh I’ll bet it’s still gonna be a pain.

Hope that helps at least a little.