43

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?

top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] arthur@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 week ago

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 20 points 1 week ago

I'm just trying to get a raise bro

[-] brisk@aussie.zone 12 points 1 week ago

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 7 points 1 week ago
[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Give 'em an occular pat down.

[-] Lorgres@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] kehet@suppo.fi 3 points 1 week ago

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

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

Tell me about it... I don't even use visual editors for charts, I use Mermaid.js in https://mermaid.live/

[-] expr@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Visual... programming languages? Yikes.

[-] Eezyville@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

There are quite a few of them

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
43 points (93.9% liked)

Programming

16176 readers
65 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev



founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS