I propose that tests and demos be run during the test suite, as a sanity check to prevent them from getting badly out of sync (see “Signs of neglect thread?” starting at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2010-June/101092.html)

Is this a good idea?

Many demos already include a self-test:

$ grep '^def test(' Demo/*/*.py
Demo/classes/Complex.py:def test():
Demo/classes/Dates.py:def test(firstyear, lastyear):
Demo/classes/Range.py:def test():
Demo/classes/Vec.py:def test():
Demo/parser/test_parser.py:def test():
Demo/pdist/FSProxy.py:def test():
Demo/pdist/RCSProxy.py:def test():
Demo/pdist/cmdfw.py:def test():
Demo/pdist/cvslib.py:def test():
Demo/pdist/cvslock.py:def test():
Demo/rpc/mountclient.py:def test():
Demo/rpc/nfsclient.py:def test():
Demo/rpc/rnusersclient.py:def test():
Demo/rpc/rpc.py:def test():
Demo/scripts/markov.py:def test():
Demo/sockets/gopher.py:def test():
Demo/threads/Generator.py:def test():
Demo/threads/sync.py:def test():
Demo/turtle/tdemo_penrose.py:def test(l=200, n=4, fun=sun, startpos=(0,0), th=2):
 
I think the first step should be to run those from regrtest.  The next step would be to convert adhoc test functions into doctests or unit tests as appropriate.

Step zero, however, should be to decide which demos are worth keeping and which should be removed.

Yep, my idea was to add a really thin regrtest integration layer for these self-tests (which have no reason to move to Lib/tests, really), e.g. add a tests.test_demos_tools module that would import all these test functions and stuff them into a unittest test suite.

I did not detail that in my report since I wanted first an agreement on the idea (i.e. a core dev setting resolution to accepted :)

Yep, a sanity check for these is a good idea, and doing it soon gives us plenty of time to work out the kinks with it before 3.2a1.

It will also let us identify which ones are completely busted by the switch to Python 3 (syntax errors) and which have other issues (self-test failures).

Closing; Demo/ is no more.

It seems there is no easy way to test tools apart from human inspection.