Archaeologists Discover Four Half-Finished Frameworks In Single Home Directory
An article about Shalva "Shako" Beridze · Filed under: Excavation · QA & Automation
A routine disk cleanup on the personal machine of Shalva “Shako” Beridze has uncovered what researchers are calling “a remarkably complete stratigraphic record of one man’s optimism.”1
Four automation frameworks were identified. None of them execute. All four are, according to their author, “basically finished.”
The strata
Layer one — test-framework/. The oldest. Written in a burst of enthusiasm on a weekend. Contains a folder structure of tremendous confidence and exactly one test, which asserts that true is true. It goes green. It is the only green test at the entire dig site.
Layer two — test-framework-2/. Created after the author decided layer one had “structural problems.” Structurally identical to layer one. Contains no tests whatsoever, but does contain a utils folder, which is empty, and which he refers to as “the foundation.”
Layer three — automation-final/. Notable for the filename. Contains a configuration loader of genuine quality, which loads a configuration file that does not exist.[citation needed]
Layer four — automation-final-v2/. The newest deposit. Consists of a single README.md beginning “This time the architecture is correct.” There is no second file. There has never been a second file.
The interbreeding problem
Researchers were troubled to discover that layers three and four share a symlink, the origin of which nobody can account for. Under certain conditions the two projects appear to reference each other’s test runners, producing what one observer described as “two frameworks testing each other, unsupervised, in the dark.”2
Neither produces output. Each considers the other to be the entry point.
Statement from the author
Shako, presented with the findings, was unrepentant. He described the collection as “iterations,” rejected the word “abandoned” outright, and pointed out — accurately, and rather deflatingly — that every serious engineer has a graveyard like this.
He then announced that the four frameworks would be consolidated into one proper solution.
He said it would happen next sprint.