Its O(1) vs O(n). We do the work once to make "no plan" safer, everybody benefits for happily ever after. Your argument sounds like the things I had to deal with when I introduced Test::More. "Why should we load a module with all these functions when I can just write 'print ...my test... ? "ok 1\n" : "not ok 1\n";'?"
But the opposite argument of when I suggested new_ok :)
Still haven't found a decent place to put that... Adam K
