What to do with assert.ok/assert.notOk?

[ventuno]

Following up on #1445 (comment) and the general conversation in #1444.

In #1445 we introduced assert.true/assert.false. We also discussed the possibility of discouraging the use of assert.ok/assert.notOk in the official documentation (see: assert.ok and assert.notOk).

References:

• QUnit anti-patterns;
• eslint-plugin-qunit no-assert-ok rule.

To update:

• All documentation should stop using assert.*ok in its examples (example module)
• All tests should stop using assert.*ok and use assert.true/assert.false/assert.strictEqual instead (example module-only test)

@Krinkle, @trentmwillis: thoughts?

[trentmwillis]

Seems reasonable to me. Maybe even deprecate + remove for QUnit 3.0.

[raycohen]

Kind of related, is loose equality still the right choice for assert.equal? Any chance we could make assert.equal strict in 3.0?

[Krinkle]

@raycohen I'm hestitant to do that because of the CommonJS spec (which was on QUnit) and its implementations elsewhere, including the popular Node.js built-in assert module.

Small divergences from that are hard to avoid, but I think assert.equal vs assert.strictEqual is not important enough in the grand scheme of things compared to the long-term impact that would have on setting expectations and providing familiarity to users. Both new ones that may benefit from Node experience, or knowledge acquired through tutorials elsewhere, as well as exising users.

Having said that, I'd be open to a conversation with some of the Node.js folks (and perhaps CommonJS) to see if we could agree on a second revision to the spec in which we might decide on this as well as some other minor diferences.

[Krinkle]

@ventuno Let me know if you'd like to help with updating tests and/or docs. I'd like to complete this before releasing 2.11 and assert.true to avoid confusion. I'm aiming for mid or late August. I can give it a go as well, but let me know in a week or so if you'd like to do that :)

[ventuno]

Thanks @Krinkle. I'll try to take care of this in the next couple of weeks :-).