docs(readme): state the documentation goal
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@@ -157,6 +157,38 @@ been compiled and read, never executed. Its architecture-neutral units
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run under `go test ./...`, which the race workflow and a manual run
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perform; the default `just test` gate does not sweep `./debug/...`.
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## The documentation goal
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The toolkit is the primary goal. The secondary one is documentation: a
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specification of the Plan 9 assembly language and of the GOOBJ object
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format that is 100 % complete, detailed enough to implement against,
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and written to a professional standard. These are the two subjects this
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project works with every day, and they are the two for which no usable
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documentation exists.
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Go documents the language on a single page, "A Quick Guide to Go's
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Assembler", which carries no section for loong64, one of the four
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architectures gasm supports, and covers a fraction of what each
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assembler accepts. What exists beyond it lives as comments inside the
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toolchain's internal source: per-architecture reference manuals for
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arm64, ppc64, riscv64 and loong64, written for the toolchain's own
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maintainers rather than for an outside reader, and none at all for
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amd64. GOOBJ fares worst of all. The format that `go build` consumes
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has no specification anywhere: it is described by a comment in an
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internal package, it is not a stable interface, and it can change with
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any toolchain release.
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The gap is therefore filled the only way it can be filled: by reverse
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engineering the toolchain itself, the same work the encoders already
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perform. Most of the documentation can come from nowhere else, and it
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is written as that knowledge is produced during development. It is
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verified the way the code is verified: an encoding documented here is
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one that differential tests against `go tool asm` confirm
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byte-for-byte, and a format field documented here is one the linker
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demonstrably reads. The result will live in this repository, so that
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Plan 9 assembly finally carries a reference its own tooling is built
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against.
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## Direction
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The plan, in the order it is being worked:
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