TAP::Parser should be *easier* to subclass

[Eric Wilhelm]

# from Steve Purkis
# on Tuesday 03 June 2008 14:38:

>Take the  
>_initialize method: because I'd seen it in one place I assumed it was
>   used everywhere.  It took me several minutes and the perl debugger
> to realize it wasn't.  Being consistent could have saved me that time
> and (ok, minor) frustration.

Well, the '_' methods are supposed to be private.  Unfortunately, the 
documentation probably needs a better entry path and explanation of how 
to customize/subclass things.

Where we left this hanging (the last time this discussion came up) was 
that subclassing is not the way to customize the harness/parser/prove.  
But, I don't think anybody has ever said what *is* the way, so the lack 
of API stability/guidance/buy-in is (IMO) holding things back.

>Of course it turns out there's already a TAP::Base class, it's just  
>not being used everywhere.  Is there any reason for that?

Accident and/or lack of full-time architect.  Big changes tend to get 
warnocked or rejected for whatever reason.

--Eric
-- 
To a database person, every nail looks like a thumb.
--Jamie Zawinski
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