Re: [Chicken-users] Re: egg unit testing

[Peter Keller]

Hello,

On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 07:56:26AM -0800, Kon Lovett wrote:
> But I have issues w/ the source expansion philosophy of Peter  
> Keller's original, which I never changed. I would like to do the  
> following:
> 
> - - Switch to a minimal source expansion method
> 
> - - Remove syntax-case requirement. i.e. add non-hygienic versions of  
> the macros
> 
> - - Then I guess rename the thing "test-base"

The main reason I had chosen the source expansion system that I did
was so that I could instrument the testing code at compile time instead
of at runtime which would have resulted in basically me doing runtime
interpretation of the testing forms. The compiler had a plenty good
source to source translator, so I used it. In many ways this codebase
is similar to the concept of debugging, since I needed to track why and
where tests failed at the point of their failure.

The reason I had used the syntax-case stuff was because I had intended
this codebase to be portable. But, seeing how it never ended up anywhere
except Chicken that I know if, I guess this isn't so important anymore.

I am very grateful that this codebase is still in use and I thank you,
especially Ken, for maintaining it. While I had the time to write it, I
discovered I couldn't maintain it properly due to life's constraints.

The only opinions I have about the future of this code is to keep the
feel of the source code expansion idea and eventually implement a complete
testing dialect for scheme. Stuff like (test-let ...) which would contain
various escape clauses and idenitification strings, etc, etc, etc. Then
it could either be given to a macro expansion engine, or a full source to
source translator which performs a different instrumentation if desired
(among other things). 

Thank you.

-pete