[tap-l] Nested TAP

[Ovid]

--- Andy Armstrong <andy at hexten.net> wrote:

> Your approach: generated TAP is automatically backwards compatible,  
> producer needs a minimal parser or additional logic to keep track of 

> summary results, producer doesn't need to know the TAP version  
> supported by consumer.

Yes.

> My approach: nested TAP isn't b/c, simpleminded producers (no
> parser),  
> producer can downgrade iff it knows the TAP version supported by  
> consumer.

There are plenty of ways that the producer might not know the consumer
(in fact, it's beneficial if it doesn't know since this reduces
coupling).  For example, what about a consumer reading pregenerated TAP
from a database, Web service, file, etc?  There's no way the producer
can/should know which consumers will read it in the future.

> I like the idea of not breaking backwards compatibility /now/ - but I
> don't like the idea of living with backwards compatibility baggage  
> forever.

Agreed on both points.  I'm willing to break backcompat when it's
demonstrated to me that the wins outweigh the losses.

Cheers,
Ovid

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