So, I've been developing a few programs for AutoCAD 2005, and I've been constantly running into problems--specifically, I've been working on a program that needs to draw lines based on absolute angles ("azimuths") and distances, converting from a special input format to degrees to radians and back, and, like many other programmers, my code has gotten especially bulky and buggy; I've been stuck for almost a week and a half for a program/script that should've taken about three or four days.
I've been thinking about implementing a testing framework for making development much smoother, but unlike other languages, I'm working in a language that supposedly has absolutely no libraries for it and, even better, it's a embedding scripting environment.
I have a few ideas about how the design might work out, but I need to explain a few things:
Executing commands/AutoLISP background
Most of the programs I write are in the form of console-like commands, much like a shell. For example, say I write a function x. In AutoLISP, it's expressed as (the slash is also literally there): (defun x (arguments / local variables) body of function). To make it exposed to the console, I would need to change the name from x to C:x.
So, most of my testing must be done directly from the console; I tend to avoid the inbuilt Visual Lisp editor in AutoCAD because it seems to be disjointed from the actual working environment that the program will most likely be used in, and it doesn't seem to have an actual debugger. So, I frequently have to use (print "string") or other methods to debug my code.
Ideas/Thoughts/Questions
1. What types of functions might I want to expose for a testing framework? I've heard about multiple paradigms myself, such as compile-time testing, asserts, test classes in Java, etc. Should I try to code an assert? Perhaps I should create reflection-using tests?
2. How and where might I want to inject tests? I've thought about writing a different function and turning all local variables into globals to expose it to a possible testing context, but I'm still unsure of how I might want to do this. AutoLISP is lacking in regular Lisp macros, I believe, but I think it still has very nice reflection capabilities, so it is possible for me to actually feed in commands to the console in order to do things. I feel that an external, non-intrusive framework would make the most sense, but I'd like to get a more experienced answer on this.
Base functionality: with the same inputs, the system gives the same outputs.
Useful functionality: asserts. Given some setup in testing code, you then run part of the program to be tested, and make assertations about the output. If all of the assertations are as-expected, print something minimal. If an assertation fails, print something more verbose, to help track back what went wrong.
Incremental functionality. if something sneaks by your tests, and you have to manually find a bug, write a test that will cover that bug next time.
Continual functionality. Have the tests run at least once-per-submission to your source control system. They can run as a presubmit if failures are common but testing itself is quick, or can run as a postsubmit if failures are rare but testing is slow.