Last modified: 2014-07-28 18:40:06 UTC
The use case is following: Extensions like Translate (probably also CirrusSearch) register external services like ElasticSearch. During unit tests code can create and change pages. Hooks are executed which call these services with test data but using the production service. If there were a hook for preparing the environment, we could setup a test service or disable the service, depending what makes sense.
To (I hope) further the case, when on labs-vagrant I run phpunit most of the CPU cycle go (all the time) to processes like php maintenance/runJobs.php --wiki=wiki-unittest_ --type=cirrusSearchLinksUpdateSecondary --maxtime=60 --memory-limit=300M and similar ones for Parsoid or Solr when enabled.