minor re-org
adding benchmarks
added attr_comp to alike
test restructure

all the helper functions moved to their own file
now adding all old alike tests to new C alike
minor err msg change
changed parameter format
check length of all objects, not just lists
changed type_alike to return message instead of FALSE

This is part of the process of integrating type_alike into
alike; also note the comments in TODO about the weird unreproducible
bug that surfaced with these changes
rationalized TODO files