May 20, 2026
Markdown tests? Commenters lose it
A Markdown-based test suite
Tests in plain writing? The comments say this "old idea" just got a very 2025 glow-up
TLDR: EndBASIC’s creator is writing tests in plain-text Markdown so they also work as readable documentation and AI-friendly examples. Commenters loved the clarity, but many instantly turned it into a nostalgic pile-on about older tools that already did similar things—plus a few jokes at AI’s expense.
A developer behind EndBASIC has decided to do something delightfully weird: stop writing many of his software tests in the usual code-heavy style and start writing them in Markdown, the plain-text format people use for notes, docs, and README files. His big pitch is that these tests double as living examples of how the language behaves, which also makes them easier for AI tools to read and learn from. In other words: the tests aren’t just checking the project—they’re also teaching it how to explain itself.
And the community? Oh, they immediately turned this into a glorious “new idea vs. ancient tradition” showdown. One camp was genuinely charmed, with one commenter saying the whole thing felt like a kind of notebook where documentation and testing become one neat package. Another swooped in with the classic internet move: “cool… but didn’t Perl do this ages ago?” Suddenly the replies became a reunion tour of old text-based testing tools, with Test Anything Protocol, cram, and even a Shakespeare language interpreter getting dragged onstage.
The funniest energy came from the low-key flexes and side quests. One person popped in to plug Voiden with a casual “somewhat similar… PS: I am currently working on Voiden,” while another used the moment to roast large language models for failing at curly quotes. So yes, the article is about smarter testing—but the comments turned it into a chaotic talent show of nostalgia, one-upmanship, and nerdy “we had this first” drama.
Key Points
- •The article says AI-assisted experiments with EndBASIC game generation helped restart active development on the project.
- •The EndBASIC core has been undergoing a rewrite since January, with an upcoming release expected to include the new work.
- •The author replaced Rust unit tests for the compiler and VM with Markdown-based integration tests.
- •The Markdown tests are intended to function as both executable tests and canonical documentation of EndBASIC language behavior.
- •The author reports that GPT 5.4 was able to read the Markdown test files and generate an accurate rules file describing EndBASIC-specific behavior.