Back-port the batch API patch & related imporvements

We should make sure we also port much of the added setUp stuff that was fixed before batch API.

Anyone working on this? Sure would be swell for contrib and custom modules.

Not at current. There were a few more issues I'd like to see committed first, but anyone is free to work on this. Should be fairly straight forward since the base DrupalWebTestCase has been back-ported.

The batch API patch rewrites much of the simpletest.module and removes the dependency of the simpletest library. I will look into it, but it may require that we drop support for old format of tests. Which would also alleviate some confusions, but would fry a number of tests.

I'm looking into this.

Personally, I think it is OK to break some existing tests. Interested parties can update them as needed. If you make a new branch, you won't disturb people relying on current behavior.

I'll make a d6 2.x branch?

I have it working. Waiting for CVS to come back in order to make patch.

Patch to checkout.

Committed.