Goals Met

Got the doctests all prettified.  They are located in biolib/src/mappings/swig/python/test, and called test_bpp_*.py, where the * is utils, numcalc, seq, and popgen.  I have notes for every class, and also for functions whose use isn't very clear.

Just checked over Hilmar's e-mail with the goals he set for me.  I was slightly mistaken--he wanted 60% of the classes wrapped, with 80% of those tested--not 80% with 60% tested as I thought.  I'll quote him directly:

1. Map for Python with SWIG 60% of classes and templates of all Bio++
modules

2. 80% of all methods in those classes and templates have complete doctests
with a clear description of what the method is supposed to do.

Now, I rechecked my list of objects.  It turns out that there are 416 classes, not 432.  That's because 16 of those are nested classes that SWIG can't handle anyway.  The number I have wrapped is 414--I could never get numcalc/LUDecomposition to work, and utils/BppString was also ill-behaved (and totally useless for this project, anyway).  That's 99.5%. The number I've tested thoroughly kept creeping up and down slightly as I edited my doctests, but it settled out at 208.  That's exactly half of the total that I have completely unit-tested.  So that achieves the 48% (80% × 60%), with a little to spare.

Am I happy with this?  Yes and no.  I think it's obvious that I managed to put out a lot over the last couple of weeks, and I'm satisfied with my progress.  But it's still short of the goals I set out to do.  Yes, I think those goals were ambitious.  When I set them up, I hadn't looked at the Bio++ code as closely as I should have.  I should have known that doing each library, wrapping and testing, in a week was too much.  But I said I'd do it, and I still feel responsible for it.  So there we go...

I'm also more in touch with Julien and the Bio++ coders, and I think I'd like to switch gears a little now, and maybe work with them to make the code a little more SWIG-friendly.  We'll see how that goes.  I also need to work with Pjotr to get everything incorporated into the whole biolib framework.  So there's still stuff to do.  This autumn I have a teaching gig at a local college, but that's not going to take all of my time.  So I'm going to keep working on bits and pieces of this.  Despite the last month of high stress, I still feel that this project is a good one, with a lot of potential to help scientists do what they need to do, with a minimum of pain.

In the meantime, it's past 3:30 AM, and I'm probably blathering.  So I'll sign off.

שלום