Streaming -PassThru output in v4

[redoz]

I'm not sure if reasonable/possible but it would be great if the -PassThru data could be streamed out rather than returned at the end. My test suite takes several minutes to run and it would be nice if I could get structured data to update my UI as the tests are executed rather than as a large chunk at the end.

[dlwyatt]

On the -PassThru object, no. But maybe we can add something similar to event handlers; you pass in a script block to run for each Describe / Context / It, that sort of thing.

[nohwnd]

I tried to do that (callbacks) a while back in hope for a better integration with VS rest runner. Matbe I still have the code somewhere.

[redoz]

@dlwyatt yeah that would work, hopefully it can be designed in such a way it's easy to drop in different consumers, maybe even multiple ones?

Will v4 maintain backwards compatibility with PS2?

[dlwyatt]

I'm not 100% sure on that one. We get held back quite a bit on new features by having to support PSv2, and at this point, the only operating systems that can even run PSv2 have already exited mainstream support (though extended support goes until 2020, if I remember correctly.)

[redoz]

Well, maybe more importantly, is there any OS that will only run PSv2? Didn't MS do a pretty good job of backporting v3/4/5 to all supported OSs?

According to some random internet source: "Computers running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 can upgrade to PowerShell v4, but not PowerShell v5."

[dlwyatt]

the last OS that couldn't be upgraded past PSv2 was XP / 2003. Other than maybe some XP embedded stuff, that's all past extended support now.

However, I've been in those big enterprises that won't let you upgrade stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to find many admins / companies out there that still have to put up with v2 for now. Most of the time, it doesn't hurt to make modules v2-compatible, but we've run into problems several times so far (where we'd want to take advantage of the AST, but can't.)

Personally, I'm leaning toward making v3 or v4 the last version of Pester to support PowerShell v2, but we'll see how it goes. Will probably put that out as an RFC or poll or something.

[redoz]

Well I don't work in in a large enterprise so I'm all for keeping v3 the latest version supporting PSv2, then v4 can hopefully move faster and further.

[it-praktyk]

What is a conclusion?
Is it related to #447?

[nohwnd]

@it-praktyk Let's keep this open. I am planning to change the internals to allow extensions, and this could be one of them.

ad 447: A bit. The currently running test info would then be available to the extension, and possibly even to the test.