Test::Harness features

[David Golden]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Eric Wilhelm<scratchcomputing at gmail.com> wrote:
>>That's not what I'm talking about.
>
> Maybe I missed something?  Please explain your use-case.

It wasn't my use case to start, but Ovid's: can we split Test::Harness
so that some part stays in core and other parts live on CPAN where we
can develop new features.  My advice -- make T::H more pluggable so
using those CPAN parts is easier than it would be today.

>>It's 'deprecated' for new development, but it's not deprecated in
>>general usage due to the same back-compatibility problems that plague
>>the rest of the toolchain.  (Hurrah for configure_requires, but we'll
>>be 10 years before we can assume it as standard.)
>
> It sounds like you're wanting to plugin to TAP::Harness via
> Test::Harness using environment variables while running an arbitrary
> (generated Makefile) `make test` with EU::MM and/or the Makefile.PL
> being none the wiser.  I'm thinking "Dragons! Run away!!!"

Not denying the dragons.

Just brainstorming for a moment:

Case 1: I'm a developer.  I want to use some nifty harness feature in
evaluating my tests (say, nested TAP).  It lives in extension module
TAP::Harness::ReallyCool.  I don't want to have to subclass
Module::Build, or write custom Makefile extensions for EU::MM and the
M::I wizards don't support ReallyCool yet and I just want it to work.

Case 2: I'm a user. I want to use some nifty harness feature when
running tests (say, color or HTML output).  I don't want to mess with
the Makefile.PL or Build.PL of distributions I download. I just want
it to work.

Case 3: I'm a smoke tester.  I want to do evil things that no one
would suspect and Test::Harness is going to be my sidekick.I want to
compile XS modules against bleadperl commit N-1 and test them against
commit N.  I want Test::Harness to pretend that every test shebang is
calling for taint mode turned on.

Case 4: I'm a Padre developer.  I want to make a Padre CPAN shell and
I want to have the harness convert TAP into JSON so I can display test
results nicely.

> I thought build_requires and such would give plenty of room to assert
> and install a worldful of deps (thus allowing all of the shiny new
> knobs and levers to be manipulated directly), but maybe I'm missing
> what you're trying to accomplish.