Re: Direction for test frameworks: Perl TAP vs. Python/pytest

> On 16 Jun 2026, at 17:15, Aleksander Alekseev <aleksander(at)tigerdata(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Hi Tom,
>
>> I'm not super attracted to the idea of back-patching a whole new test
>> framework into stable branches. But the alternatives are not pretty
>> either --- eg, who will want to write a python test and then translate
>> it to perl for the back branches?

Even if we backpatch a new framework, we'd still need to port all the tests of
that release for it to be useful which seems like a pretty big hammer to swing.

> That's a fair concern. It seems to me that back-patching TAP tests
> doesn't happen too often.

A quick look at REL_14 shows that there have been 450+ commits touching
src/test in some fashion since 14.0 was stamped. It's not the same as
backpatching of TAP tests but it's a data point.

> Also modern LLM agents should be quite good at it.

I don't disagree, and it will no doubt be helpful, but I also don't think
process should be based on availability of tooling outside of our control.

--
Daniel Gustafsson