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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | ||
3 | perltodo - Perl TO-DO List | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
6 | |
7 | This is a list of wishes for Perl. It is maintained by Nathan | |
8 | Torkington for the Perl porters. Send updates to | |
9 | I<perl5-porters@perl.org>. If you want to work on any of these | |
10 | projects, be sure to check the perl5-porters archives for past ideas, | |
11 | flames, and propaganda. This will save you time and also prevent you | |
12 | from implementing something that Larry has already vetoed. One set | |
13 | of archives may be found at: | |
14 | ||
15 | http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/ | |
16 | ||
17 | ||
18 | =head1 Infrastructure | |
19 | ||
20 | =head2 Mailing list archives | |
21 | ||
22 | Chaim suggests contacting egroup and asking them to archive the other | |
23 | perl.org mailing lists. Probably not advocacy, but definitely | |
24 | perl6-porters, etc. | |
25 | ||
26 | =head2 Bug tracking system | |
27 | ||
28 | Richard Foley I<richard@perl.org> is writing one. We looked at | |
29 | several, like gnats and the Debian system, but at the time we | |
30 | investigated them, none met our needs. Since then, Jitterbug has | |
31 | matured, and may be worth reinvestigation. | |
32 | ||
e28598cb GS |
33 | The system we've developed is the recipient of perlbug mail, and any |
34 | followups it generates from perl5-porters. New bugs are entered | |
35 | into a mysql database, and sent on to | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
36 | perl5-porters with the subject line rewritten to include a "ticket |
37 | number" (unique ID for the new bug). If the incoming message already | |
38 | had a ticket number in the subject line, then the message is logged | |
39 | against that bug. There is a separate email interface (not forwarding | |
40 | to p5p) that permits porters to claim, categorize, and close tickets. | |
41 | ||
e28598cb | 42 | There is also a web interface to the system at http://bugs.perl.org. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
43 | |
44 | The current delay in implementation is caused by perl.org lockups. | |
45 | One suspect is the mail handling system, possibly going into loops. | |
46 | ||
e28598cb | 47 | We still desperately need a bugmaster, someone who will look at |
e50bb9a1 GS |
48 | every new "bug" and kill those that we already know about, those |
49 | that are not bugs at all, etc. | |
50 | ||
51 | =head2 Regression Tests | |
52 | ||
53 | The test suite for Perl serves two needs: ensuring features work, and | |
54 | ensuring old bugs have not been reintroduced. Both need work. | |
55 | ||
56 | Brent LaVelle (lavelle@metronet.com) has stepped forward to work on | |
57 | performance tests and improving the size of the test suite. | |
58 | ||
59 | =over 4 | |
60 | ||
61 | =item Coverage | |
62 | ||
63 | Do the tests that come with Perl exercise every line (or every block, | |
64 | or ...) of the Perl interpreter, and if not then how can we make them | |
65 | do so? | |
66 | ||
67 | =item Regression | |
68 | ||
69 | No bug fixes should be made without a corresponding testsuite addition. | |
70 | This needs a dedicated enforcer, as the current pumpking is either too | |
71 | lazy or too stupid or both and lets enforcement wander all over the | |
72 | map. :-) | |
73 | ||
74 | =item __DIE__ | |
75 | ||
76 | Tests that fail need to be of a form that can be readily mailed | |
77 | to perlbug and diagnosed with minimal back-and-forth's to determine | |
78 | which test failed, due to what cause, etc. | |
79 | ||
80 | =item suidperl | |
81 | ||
82 | We need regression/sanity tests for suidperl | |
83 | ||
84 | =item The 25% slowdown from perl4 to perl5 | |
85 | ||
86 | This value may or may not be accurate, but it certainly is | |
87 | eye-catching. For some things perl5 is faster than perl4, but often | |
a2293a43 | 88 | the reliability and extensibility have come at a cost of speed. The |
e50bb9a1 GS |
89 | benchmark suite that Gisle released earlier has been hailed as both a |
90 | fantastic solution and as a source of entirely meaningless figures. | |
91 | Do we need to test "real applications"? Can you do so? Anyone have | |
92 | machines to dedicate to the task? Identify the things that have grown | |
93 | slower, and see if there's a way to make them faster. | |
94 | ||
95 | =back | |
96 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
97 | =head1 Configure |
98 | ||
99 | Andy Dougherty maintain(ed|s) a list of "todo" items for the configure | |
100 | that comes with Perl. See Porting/pumpkin.pod in the latest | |
101 | source release. | |
102 | ||
103 | =head2 Install HTML | |
104 | ||
105 | Have "make install" give you the option to install HTML as well. This | |
106 | would be part of Configure. Andy Wardley (certified Perl studmuffin) | |
107 | will look into the current problems of HTML installation--is | |
108 | 'installhtml' preventing this from happening cleanly, or is pod2html | |
109 | the problem? If the latter, Brad Appleton's pod work may fix the | |
110 | problem for free. | |
111 | ||
112 | =head1 Perl Language | |
113 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
114 | =head2 Prototypes |
115 | ||
116 | =over 4 | |
117 | ||
118 | =item Named prototypes | |
119 | ||
120 | Add proper named prototypes that actually work usefully. | |
121 | ||
122 | =item Indirect objects | |
123 | ||
124 | Fix prototype bug that forgets indirect objects. | |
125 | ||
126 | =item Method calls | |
127 | ||
128 | Prototypes for method calls. | |
129 | ||
130 | =item Context | |
131 | ||
132 | Return context prototype declarations. | |
133 | ||
134 | =item Scoped subs | |
135 | ||
136 | lexically-scoped subs, e.g. my sub | |
137 | ||
138 | =back | |
139 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
140 | =head1 Perl Internals |
141 | ||
142 | =head2 magic_setisa | |
143 | ||
144 | C<magic_setisa> should be made to update %FIELDS [???] | |
145 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
146 | =head2 Garbage Collection |
147 | ||
148 | There was talk of a mark-and-sweep garbage collector at TPC2, but the | |
149 | (to users) unpredictable nature of its behaviour put some off. | |
150 | Sarathy, I believe, did the work. Here's what he has to say: | |
151 | ||
152 | Yeah, I hope to implement it someday too. The points that were | |
153 | raised in TPC2 were all to do with calling DESTROY() methods, but | |
a2293a43 | 154 | I think we can accommodate that by extending bless() to stash |
e50bb9a1 GS |
155 | extra information for objects so we track their lifetime accurately |
156 | for those that want their DESTROY() to be predictable (this will be | |
157 | a speed hit, naturally, and will therefore be optional, naturally. :) | |
c47ff5f1 | 158 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
159 | [N.B. Don't even ask me about this now! When I have the time to |
160 | write a cogent summary, I'll post it.] | |
161 | ||
162 | =head2 Reliable signals | |
163 | ||
83df6a1d JH |
164 | Mostly done in Perl 5.8, there is now a reliable signal handler |
165 | despatch. No measurable slowdown detected in Linux or Solaris | |
166 | with the 5.8 approach (implemented by Nick I-S). | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
167 | |
168 | There are at least three things to consider: | |
169 | ||
170 | =over 4 | |
171 | ||
172 | =item Alternate runops() for signal despatch | |
173 | ||
83df6a1d | 174 | Sarathy and Dan discussed this on perl5-porters. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
175 | |
176 | =item Figure out how to die() in delayed sighandler | |
177 | ||
178 | =item Add tests for Thread::Signal | |
179 | ||
180 | =item Automatic tests against CPAN | |
181 | ||
182 | Is there some way to automatically build all/most of CPAN with | |
183 | the new Perl and check that the modules there pass all the tests? | |
184 | ||
185 | =back | |
186 | ||
187 | =head2 Interpolated regex performance bugs | |
188 | ||
189 | while (<>) { | |
190 | $found = 0; | |
191 | foreach $pat (@patterns) { | |
192 | $found++ if /$pat/o; | |
193 | } | |
194 | print if $found; | |
195 | } | |
196 | ||
197 | The qr// syntax added in 5.005 has solved this problem, but | |
198 | it needs more thorough documentation. | |
199 | ||
200 | =head2 Memory leaks from failed eval/regcomp | |
201 | ||
202 | The only known memory leaks in Perl are in failed code or regexp | |
83df6a1d JH |
203 | compilation. Fix this. |
204 | ||
205 | Noticed in Perl 5.6: Also local()ising tied variables leak. | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
206 | |
207 | =head2 Make XS easier to use | |
208 | ||
209 | There was interest in SWIG from porters, but nothing has happened | |
210 | lately. | |
211 | ||
83df6a1d JH |
212 | New development in 2001: the Inline module, when it gels, shows great |
213 | promise. | |
214 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
215 | =head2 Make embedded Perl easier to use |
216 | ||
217 | This is probably difficult for the same reasons that "XS For Dummies" | |
218 | will be difficult. | |
219 | ||
220 | =head2 Namespace cleanup | |
221 | ||
04c70446 | 222 | CPP-space: restrict CPP symbols exported from headers |
e50bb9a1 GS |
223 | header-space: move into CORE/perl/ |
224 | API-space: begin list of things that constitute public api | |
766b5730 | 225 | env-space: Configure should use PERL_CONFIG instead of CONFIG etc. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
226 | |
227 | =head2 MULTIPLICITY | |
228 | ||
229 | Complete work on safe recursive interpreters C<Perl-E<gt>new()>. | |
230 | Sarathy says that a reference implementation exists. | |
231 | ||
232 | =head2 MacPerl | |
233 | ||
234 | Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher are working on better integrating | |
235 | MacPerl into the Perl distribution. | |
236 | ||
237 | =head1 Documentation | |
238 | ||
239 | There's a lot of documentation that comes with Perl. The quantity of | |
240 | documentation makes it difficult for users to know which section of | |
241 | which manpage to read in order to solve their problem. Tom | |
242 | Christiansen has done much of the documentation work in the past. | |
243 | ||
244 | =head2 A clear division into tutorial and reference | |
245 | ||
246 | Some manpages (e.g., perltoot and perlreftut) clearly set out to | |
247 | educate the reader about a subject. Other manpages (e.g., perlsub) | |
248 | are references for which there is no tutorial, or are references with | |
249 | a slight tutorial bent. If things are either tutorial or reference, | |
250 | then the reader knows which manpage to read to learn about a subject, | |
251 | and which manpage to read to learn all about an aspect of that | |
252 | subject. Part of the solution to this is: | |
253 | ||
254 | =head2 Remove the artificial distinction between operators and functions | |
255 | ||
256 | History shows us that users, and often porters, aren't clear on the | |
257 | operator-function distinction. The present split in reference | |
258 | material between perlfunc and perlop hinders user navigation. Given | |
259 | that perlfunc is by far the larger of the two, move operator reference | |
260 | into perlfunc. | |
261 | ||
262 | =head2 More tutorials | |
263 | ||
264 | More documents of a tutorial nature could help. Here are some | |
265 | candidates: | |
266 | ||
267 | =over 4 | |
268 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
269 | =item I/O |
270 | ||
271 | Mark-Jason Dominus (mjd@plover.com) has an outline for perliotut. | |
272 | ||
273 | =item pack/unpack | |
274 | ||
275 | This is badly needed. There has been some discussion on the | |
276 | subject on perl5-porters. | |
277 | ||
278 | =item Debugging | |
279 | ||
280 | Ronald Kimball (rjk@linguist.dartmouth.edu) has volunteered. | |
281 | ||
a45bd81d GS |
282 | =back |
283 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
284 | =head2 Include a search tool |
285 | ||
286 | perldoc should be able to 'grep' fulltext indices of installed POD | |
287 | files. This would let people say: | |
288 | ||
289 | perldoc -find printing numbers with commas | |
290 | ||
291 | and get back the perlfaq entry on 'commify'. | |
292 | ||
293 | This solution, however, requires documentation to contain the keywords | |
294 | the user is searching for. Even when the users know what they're | |
295 | looking for, often they can't spell it. | |
296 | ||
297 | =head2 Include a locate tool | |
298 | ||
299 | perldoc should be able to help people find the manpages on a | |
300 | particular high-level subject: | |
301 | ||
302 | perldoc -find web | |
303 | ||
304 | would tell them manpages, web pages, and books with material on web | |
305 | programming. Similarly C<perldoc -find databases>, C<perldoc -find | |
306 | references> and so on. | |
307 | ||
308 | We need something in the vicinity of: | |
309 | ||
310 | % perl -help random stuff | |
311 | No documentation for perl function `random stuff' found | |
312 | The following entry in perlfunc.pod matches /random/a: | |
313 | =item rand EXPR | |
c47ff5f1 | 314 | |
e50bb9a1 | 315 | =item rand |
c47ff5f1 | 316 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
317 | Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to C<0> and less |
318 | than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is | |
319 | omitted, the value C<1> is used. Automatically calls C<srand()> unless | |
320 | C<srand()> has already been called. See also C<srand()>. | |
c47ff5f1 | 321 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
322 | (Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are too |
323 | large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably compiled | |
324 | with the wrong number of RANDBITS.) | |
325 | The following pod pages seem to have /stuff/a: | |
326 | perlfunc.pod (7 hits) | |
327 | perlfaq7.pod (6 hits) | |
328 | perlmod.pod (4 hits) | |
329 | perlsyn.pod (3 hits) | |
330 | perlfaq8.pod (2 hits) | |
331 | perlipc.pod (2 hits) | |
332 | perl5004delta.pod (1 hit) | |
333 | perl5005delta.pod (1 hit) | |
334 | perlcall.pod (1 hit) | |
335 | perldelta.pod (1 hit) | |
336 | perlfaq3.pod (1 hit) | |
337 | perlfaq5.pod (1 hit) | |
338 | perlhist.pod (1 hit) | |
339 | perlref.pod (1 hit) | |
340 | perltoc.pod (1 hit) | |
341 | perltrap.pod (1 hit) | |
342 | Proceed to open perlfunc.pod? [y] n | |
343 | Do you want to speak perl interactively? [y] n | |
344 | Should I dial 911? [y] n | |
345 | Do you need psychiatric help? [y] y | |
346 | <PELIZA> Hi, what bothers you today? | |
347 | A Python programmer in the next cubby is driving me nuts! | |
348 | <PELIZA> Hmm, thats fixable. Just [rest censored] | |
349 | ||
350 | =head2 Separate function manpages by default | |
351 | ||
352 | Perl should install 'manpages' for every function/operator into the | |
353 | 3pl or 3p manual section. By default. The splitman program in the | |
354 | Perl source distribution does the work of turning big perlfunc into | |
355 | little 3p pages. | |
356 | ||
357 | =head2 Users can't find the manpages | |
358 | ||
359 | Make C<perldoc> tell users what they need to add to their .login or | |
360 | .cshrc to set their MANPATH correctly. | |
361 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
362 | =head2 Outstanding issues to be documented |
363 | ||
364 | Tom has a list of 5.005_5* features or changes that require | |
365 | documentation. | |
366 | ||
367 | Create one document that coherently explains the delta between the | |
368 | last camel release and the current release. perldelta was supposed | |
369 | to be that, but no longer. The things in perldelta never seemed to | |
370 | get placed in the right places in the real manpages, either. This | |
371 | needs work. | |
372 | ||
04c70446 GS |
373 | =head2 Adapt www.linuxhq.com for Perl |
374 | ||
375 | This should help glorify documentation and get more people involved in | |
376 | perl development. | |
377 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
378 | =head2 Replace man with a perl program |
379 | ||
380 | Can we reimplement man in Perl? Tom has a start. I believe some of | |
381 | the Linux systems distribute a manalike. Alternatively, build on | |
382 | perldoc to remove the unfeatures like "is slow" and "has no apropos". | |
383 | ||
384 | =head2 Unicode tutorial | |
385 | ||
386 | We could use more work on helping people understand Perl's new | |
387 | Unicode support that Larry has created. | |
388 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
389 | =head1 Modules |
390 | ||
391 | =head2 Update the POSIX extension to conform with the POSIX 1003.1 Edition 2 | |
392 | ||
393 | The current state of the POSIX extension is as of Edition 1, 1991, | |
394 | whereas the Edition 2 came out in 1996. ISO/IEC 9945:1-1996(E), | |
395 | ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 Edition. ISBN 1-55937-573-6. The updates | |
396 | were legion: threads, IPC, and real time extensions. | |
397 | ||
398 | =head2 Module versions | |
399 | ||
400 | Automate the checking of versions in the standard distribution so | |
401 | it's easy for a pumpking to check whether CPAN has a newer version | |
402 | that we should be including? | |
403 | ||
404 | =head2 New modules | |
405 | ||
406 | Which modules should be added to the standard distribution? This ties | |
407 | in with the SDK discussed on the perl-sdk list at perl.org. | |
408 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
409 | =head2 Profiler |
410 | ||
83df6a1d | 411 | Devel::DProf requires more documentation. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
412 | |
413 | =head2 Tie Modules | |
414 | ||
415 | =over 4 | |
416 | ||
417 | =item VecArray | |
418 | ||
419 | Implement array using vec(). Nathan Torkington has working code to | |
420 | do this. | |
421 | ||
422 | =item SubstrArray | |
423 | ||
424 | Implement array using substr() | |
425 | ||
426 | =item VirtualArray | |
427 | ||
428 | Implement array using a file | |
429 | ||
430 | =item ShiftSplice | |
431 | ||
432 | Defines shift et al in terms of splice method | |
433 | ||
434 | =back | |
435 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
436 | =head2 Procedural options |
437 | ||
438 | Support procedural interfaces for the common cases of Perl's | |
439 | gratuitously OOO modules. Tom objects to "use IO::File" reading many | |
440 | thousands of lines of code. | |
441 | ||
442 | =head2 RPC | |
443 | ||
444 | Write a module for transparent, portable remote procedure calls. (Not | |
445 | core). This touches on the CORBA and ILU work. | |
446 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
447 | =head2 Export File::Find variables |
448 | ||
449 | Make File::Find export C<$name> etc manually, at least if asked to. | |
450 | ||
451 | =head2 Ioctl | |
452 | ||
453 | Finish a proper Ioctl module. | |
454 | ||
455 | =head2 Debugger attach/detach | |
456 | ||
457 | Permit a user to debug an already-running program. | |
458 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
459 | =head2 Alternative RE Syntax |
460 | ||
461 | Make an alternative regular expression syntax that is accessed through | |
462 | a module. For instance, | |
463 | ||
464 | use RE; | |
465 | $re = start_of_line() | |
466 | ->literal("1998/10/08") | |
467 | ->optional( whitespace() ) | |
468 | ->literal("[") | |
469 | ->remember( many( or( "-", digit() ) ) ); | |
470 | ||
471 | if (/$re/) { | |
472 | print "time is $1\n"; | |
473 | } | |
474 | ||
475 | Newbies to regular expressions typically only use a subset of the full | |
476 | language. Perhaps you wouldn't have to implement the full feature set. | |
477 | ||
478 | =head2 Bundled modules | |
479 | ||
480 | Nicholas Clark (nick@flirble.org) had a patch for storing modules in | |
481 | zipped format. This needs exploring and concluding. | |
482 | ||
483 | =head2 Expect | |
484 | ||
485 | Adopt IO::Tty, make it as portable as Don Libes' "expect" (can we link | |
486 | against expect code?), and perfect a Perl version of expect. IO::Tty | |
487 | and expect could then be distributed as part of the core distribution, | |
488 | replacing Comm.pl and other hacks. | |
489 | ||
490 | =head2 GUI::Native | |
491 | ||
492 | A simple-to-use interface to native graphical abilities would | |
493 | be welcomed. Oh, Perl's access Tk is nice enough, and reasonably | |
494 | portable, but it's not particularly as fast as one would like. | |
495 | Simple access to the mouse's cut buffer or mouse-presses shouldn't | |
496 | required loading a few terabytes of Tk code. | |
497 | ||
498 | =head2 Update semibroken auxiliary tools; h2ph, a2p, etc. | |
499 | ||
500 | Kurt Starsinic is working on h2ph. mjd has fixed bugs in a2p in the | |
501 | past. a2p apparently doesn't work on nawk and gawk extensions. | |
502 | Graham Barr has an Include module that does h2ph work at runtime. | |
503 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
504 | =head2 pod2html |
505 | ||
506 | A short-term fix: pod2html generates absolute HTML links. Make it | |
507 | generate relative links. | |
508 | ||
509 | =head2 Podchecker | |
510 | ||
511 | Something like lint for Pod would be good. Something that catches | |
512 | common errors as well as gross ones. Brad Appleton is putting | |
513 | together something as part of his PodParser work. | |
514 | ||
515 | =head1 Tom's Wishes | |
516 | ||
517 | =head2 Webperl | |
518 | ||
519 | Design a webperl environment that's as tightly integrated and as | |
520 | easy-to-use as Perl's current command-line environment. | |
521 | ||
522 | =head2 Mobile agents | |
523 | ||
524 | More work on a safe and secure execution environment for mobile | |
525 | agents would be neat; the Safe.pm module is a start, but there's a | |
526 | still a lot to be done in that area. Adopt Penguin? | |
527 | ||
528 | =head2 POSIX on non-POSIX | |
529 | ||
530 | Standard programming constructs for non-POSIX systems would help a | |
531 | lot of programmers stuck on primitive, legacy systems. For example, | |
532 | Microsoft still hasn't made a usable POSIX interface on their clunky | |
533 | systems, which means that standard operations such as alarm() and | |
534 | fork(), both critical for sophisticated client-server programming, | |
535 | must both be kludged around. | |
536 | ||
537 | I'm unsure whether Tom means to emulate alarm( )and fork(), or merely | |
538 | to provide a document like perlport.pod to say which features are | |
539 | portable and which are not. | |
540 | ||
541 | =head2 Portable installations | |
542 | ||
543 | Figure out a portable semi-gelled installation, that is, one without | |
544 | full paths. Larry has said that he's thinking about this. Ilya | |
545 | pointed out that perllib_mangle() is good for this. | |
546 | ||
547 | =head1 Win32 Stuff | |
548 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
549 | =head2 Rename new headers to be consistent with the rest |
550 | ||
551 | =head2 Sort out the spawnvp() mess | |
552 | ||
553 | =head2 Work out DLL versioning | |
554 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
555 | =head2 Style-check |
556 | ||
557 | =head1 Would be nice to have | |
558 | ||
559 | =over 4 | |
560 | ||
561 | =item C<pack "(stuff)*"> | |
562 | ||
563 | =item Contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack | |
564 | ||
565 | =item lexperl | |
566 | ||
567 | =item Bundled perl preprocessor | |
568 | ||
569 | =item Use posix calls internally where possible | |
570 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
571 | =item format BOTTOM |
572 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
573 | =item -i rename file only when successfully changed |
574 | ||
575 | =item All ARGV input should act like <> | |
576 | ||
577 | =item report HANDLE [formats]. | |
578 | ||
579 | =item support in perlmain to rerun debugger | |
580 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
581 | =item lvalue functions |
582 | ||
583 | Tuomas Lukka, on behalf of the PDL project, greatly desires this and | |
584 | Ilya has a patch for it (probably against an older version of Perl). | |
585 | Tuomas points out that what PDL really wants is lvalue I<methods>, | |
586 | not just subs. | |
587 | ||
588 | =back | |
589 | ||
590 | =head1 Possible pragmas | |
591 | ||
592 | =head2 'less' | |
593 | ||
594 | (use less memory, CPU) | |
595 | ||
596 | =head1 Optimizations | |
597 | ||
598 | =head2 constant function cache | |
599 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
600 | =head2 foreach(reverse...) |
601 | ||
602 | =head2 Cache eval tree | |
603 | ||
604 | Unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?). | |
605 | ||
606 | =head2 rcatmaybe | |
607 | ||
608 | =head2 Shrink opcode tables | |
609 | ||
610 | Via multiple implementations selected in peep. | |
611 | ||
612 | =head2 Cache hash value | |
613 | ||
614 | Not a win, according to Guido. | |
615 | ||
616 | =head2 Optimize away @_ where possible | |
617 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
618 | =head2 Rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization |
619 | ||
620 | The regexp parser was rewritten for 5.005. Ilya's the regexp guru. | |
621 | ||
622 | =head1 Vague possibilities | |
623 | ||
624 | =over 4 | |
625 | ||
626 | =item ref function in list context | |
627 | ||
628 | This seems impossible to do without substantially breaking code. | |
629 | ||
630 | =item make tr/// return histogram in list context? | |
631 | ||
632 | =item Loop control on do{} et al | |
633 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
634 | =item compile to real threaded code |
635 | ||
636 | =item structured types | |
637 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
638 | =item Modifiable $1 et al |
639 | ||
640 | The intent is for this to be a means of editing the matched portions of | |
641 | the target string. | |
642 | ||
643 | =back | |
644 | ||
645 | =head1 To Do Or Not To Do | |
646 | ||
647 | These are things that have been discussed in the past and roundly | |
648 | criticized for being of questionable value. | |
649 | ||
650 | =head2 Making my() work on "package" variables | |
651 | ||
652 | Being able to say my($Foo::Bar), something that sounds ludicrous and | |
87275199 | 653 | the 5.6 pumpking has mocked. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
654 | |
655 | =head2 "or" testing defined not truth | |
656 | ||
657 | We tell people that C<||> can be used to give a default value to a | |
658 | variable: | |
659 | ||
660 | $children = shift || 5; # default is 5 children | |
661 | ||
662 | which is almost (but not): | |
663 | ||
664 | $children = shift; | |
665 | $children = 5 unless $children; | |
666 | ||
667 | but if the first argument was given and is "0", then it will be | |
668 | considered false by C<||> and C<5> used instead. Really we want | |
04c70446 | 669 | an C<||>-like operator that behaves like: |
e50bb9a1 GS |
670 | |
671 | $children = shift; | |
672 | $children = 5 unless defined $children; | |
673 | ||
04c70446 GS |
674 | Namely, a C<||> that tests defined-ness rather than truth. One was |
675 | discussed, and a patch submitted, but the objections were many. While | |
676 | there were objections, many still feel the need. At least it was | |
677 | decided that C<??> is the best name for the operator. | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
678 | |
679 | =head2 "dynamic" lexicals | |
680 | ||
681 | my $x; | |
682 | sub foo { | |
683 | local $x; | |
684 | } | |
685 | ||
686 | Localizing, as Tim Bunce points out, is a separate concept from | |
687 | whether the variable is global or lexical. Chip Salzenberg had | |
688 | an implementation once, but Larry thought it had potential to | |
689 | confuse. | |
690 | ||
691 | =head2 "class"-based, rather than package-based "lexicals" | |
692 | ||
693 | This is like what the Alias module provides, but the variables would | |
694 | be lexicals reserved by perl at compile-time, which really are indices | |
695 | pointing into the pseudo-hash object visible inside every method so | |
696 | declared. | |
697 | ||
698 | =head1 Threading | |
699 | ||
700 | =head2 Modules | |
701 | ||
702 | Which of the standard modules are thread-safe? Which CPAN modules? | |
703 | How easy is it to fix those non-safe modules? | |
704 | ||
705 | =head2 Testing | |
706 | ||
707 | Threading is still experimental. Every reproducible bug identifies | |
708 | something else for us to fix. Find and submit more of these problems. | |
709 | ||
710 | =head2 $AUTOLOAD | |
711 | ||
712 | =head2 exit/die | |
713 | ||
714 | Consistent semantics for exit/die in threads. | |
715 | ||
716 | =head2 External threads | |
717 | ||
718 | Better support for externally created threads. | |
719 | ||
720 | =head2 Thread::Pool | |
721 | ||
722 | =head2 thread-safety | |
723 | ||
724 | Spot-check globals like statcache and global GVs for thread-safety. | |
725 | "B<Part done>", says Sarathy. | |
726 | ||
727 | =head2 Per-thread GVs | |
728 | ||
729 | According to Sarathy, this would make @_ be the same in threaded | |
730 | and non-threaded, as well as helping solve problems like filehandles | |
731 | (the same filehandle currently cannot be used in two threads). | |
732 | ||
733 | =head1 Compiler | |
734 | ||
735 | =head2 Optimization | |
736 | ||
737 | The compiler's back-end code-generators for creating bytecode or | |
738 | compilable C code could use optimization work. | |
739 | ||
740 | =head2 Byteperl | |
741 | ||
742 | Figure out how and where byteperl will be built for the various | |
743 | platforms. | |
744 | ||
745 | =head2 Precompiled modules | |
746 | ||
747 | Save byte-compiled modules on disk. | |
748 | ||
749 | =head2 Executables | |
750 | ||
751 | Auto-produce executable. | |
752 | ||
753 | =head2 Typed lexicals | |
754 | ||
755 | Typed lexicals should affect B::CC::load_pad. | |
756 | ||
757 | =head2 Win32 | |
758 | ||
759 | Workarounds to help Win32 dynamic loading. | |
760 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
761 | =head2 END blocks |
762 | ||
7d30b5c4 | 763 | END blocks need saving in compiled output, now that CHECK blocks |
4f25aa18 | 764 | are available. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
765 | |
766 | =head2 _AUTOLOAD | |
767 | ||
768 | _AUTOLOAD prodding. | |
769 | ||
770 | =head2 comppadlist | |
771 | ||
772 | Fix comppadlist (names in comppad_name can have fake SvCUR | |
773 | from where newASSIGNOP steals the field). | |
774 | ||
775 | =head2 Cached compilation | |
776 | ||
777 | Can we install modules as bytecode? | |
778 | ||
04c70446 GS |
779 | =head2 Filenames |
780 | ||
83df6a1d JH |
781 | Ongoing effort: keep filenames in the distribution and in the standard |
782 | module set be 8.3 friendly where feasible. Good luck changing the | |
783 | standard modules, though. | |
04c70446 GS |
784 | |
785 | =head2 Foreign lines | |
786 | ||
787 | Perl should be more generous in accepting foreign line terminations. | |
788 | Mostly B<done> in 5.005. | |
789 | ||
790 | =head2 Namespace cleanup | |
791 | ||
792 | symbol-space: "pl_" prefix for all global vars | |
793 | "Perl_" prefix for all functions | |
794 | ||
795 | CPP-space: stop malloc()/free() pollution unless asked | |
796 | ||
04c70446 GS |
797 | =head2 ISA.pm |
798 | ||
799 | Rename and alter ISA.pm. B<Done>. It is now base.pm. | |
800 | ||
04c70446 GS |
801 | =head2 autocroak? |
802 | ||
106325ad | 803 | This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that does |
04c70446 GS |
804 | not return success automatically die()s. If you're feeling brave, tie |
805 | this in with the unified exceptions scheme. | |
806 | ||
e50bb9a1 | 807 | =cut |