"TAPlug"s for TAP::Harness

[David Golden]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Andy Armstrong<andy at hexten.net> wrote:
> Indeed. In many cases it's Test::Harness that gets in the way. Some
> history: originally the intention was that Test::Harness would be a
> legacy interface, not support any new features and just do its best to
> work like Test::Harness 2.64. Everyone's tests would migrate to using
> TAP::Harness directly and the call to TAP::Harness->new would be
> closer to the surface.

The problem continues to be that "everyone" would need to have
TAP::Harness and an upgraded toolchain that is TAP::Harness aware.  So
until configure_requires is widespread, I think you're stuck
supporting the legacy interface.

The related problem is that you have two types of users:

(a) developers, who may or may not do something custom with the
harness in the build tools of a distribution

(b) end-users, who may or may not want some custom harness behavior
and likely do not want to mess with the build-tools in an distribution

You need a plan that addresses both.

This is just like how Makefile.PL and Build.PL use arguments coded
inside by the developer or from the command line (or environment)
specified by end-users.  We can replicate that approach, or we design
something better, but don't think we can ignore both needs.

-- David