Re: Portable bitwise operations library (was Re: Portability Considerations)

[Alice Osako]

john o goyo:
> The error is mine.  I invoked gcc-git, now gm2-git, as can be seen 
> above.  (I placed the def'n module in the same directory.)
>
> It builds and runs on my sparc64.
Good to hear that!

> There are a lot of tests and it does seem to clear to me if anything 
> fails. My suggestion is to report the number of passes/fails at the 
> end of the run.

I intend to add that at some point, though the absence of a testing 
framework makes adding something like that a bit difficult. At this time 
it doesn't actually test the results automatically at all; it is reliant 
on human review to spot the faults, which is far from ideal especially 
given the large number of tests as you mentioned.

So far, the best approach I've had was to compare the two existing 
versions using a visual diff utility. While this was a tremendous help, 
it only shows where the output of the two differs; if both versions have 
the same flawed output, it does nothing to indicate the problem.

I really have no desire to dig myself any deeper, but at this point I am 
at the stage where writing a unit testing framework may be necessary for 
the existing stack of interconnected projects to progress. I really 
didn't expect this, and am wondering just how far down the rabbit hole I 
will need to go. I am already looking at hoisting the M2BSK portable I/O 
code to support the test suite - and probably some of my other stacked 
projects, given what each will entail - in much the same way I did the 
bit manipulation code itself, which is not something I am looking 
forward to at all.

When I set out on this journey I had no idea just how much would be 
involved in just getting the tools I needed before I could approach 
writing the toy Lisp implementation that was my end goal. I wasn't 
planning on a deep dive into Modula-2, but here I am.

In the meantime, I am working on updating the README.md file for the 
project, which I will probably post in a few minutes. Any advice on how 
to improve it further would be appreciated.