[Webtest] Extending WebTest...

[testing Auto]

In another thread I suggested that customizing WebTest
might be the answer for more specific "acceptance"
testing.  In that post I alluded to the fact that
extending WebTest was limiting.  Here I continue that
portion of my thoughts with more specific information.

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The short coming I've found in WebTest to allow quick
customization is that I had to alter the
antTestStepSequence.java to add my new item.  There
should be away to do this w/o changing the core code
of WebTest to make it work.  (Dierk if I missed
something here just point me the right direction.)  

Additionally, I've found that WebTest has broken a
basic programming contract.  i.e. the IStepSequence
interface was modified to drop methods.  I realize
that refactoring is important, however, I came from a
school that taught that an interface was immutable and
once published it should never change.  Because of
this I can not re-sync w/ the WebTest code base until
I've rre-factoredall of my code.  Which at this point
might be impossible w/o changing WebTest's code base. 
Why was the setSteps method removed?

A suggestion for extending WebTest.  Why not take a
page from the Ant book?  For new step items declare
what class handles them and then when the step item is
encountered WebTest will create an item of type and
then set it up.  As I understand it this is the way
that Ant works with Tasks.  By doing this it would
make it quite easy to extend WebTest without changing
the core classes.  

Chris

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