Whether you use Org-Mode Literate Programming to manage your Emacs startup or not, you will enjoy testing your configuration files changes in another Emacs instance:
alias ets="emacs --debug-init --no-init-file --no-splash --background-color white --foreground-color black --vertical-scroll-bars --eval '(switch-to-buffer \"*Messages*\")' --name TEST --title TEST --load ~/src/help/.emacs.el &"
For Sun workstation bootup nostalgia the buffer has black text on a white background.