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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 | |
88 | the reliability and extensability have come at a cost of speed. The | |
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 | ||
114 | =head2 our ($var) | |
115 | ||
116 | Declare global variables (lexically or otherwise). | |
117 | ||
118 | =head2 64-bit Perl | |
119 | ||
120 | Verify complete 64 bit support so that the value of sysseek, or C<-s>, or | |
121 | stat(), or tell can fit into a perl number without losing precision. | |
122 | Work with the perl-64bit mailing list on perl.org. | |
123 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
124 | =head2 Prototypes |
125 | ||
126 | =over 4 | |
127 | ||
128 | =item Named prototypes | |
129 | ||
130 | Add proper named prototypes that actually work usefully. | |
131 | ||
132 | =item Indirect objects | |
133 | ||
134 | Fix prototype bug that forgets indirect objects. | |
135 | ||
136 | =item Method calls | |
137 | ||
138 | Prototypes for method calls. | |
139 | ||
140 | =item Context | |
141 | ||
142 | Return context prototype declarations. | |
143 | ||
144 | =item Scoped subs | |
145 | ||
146 | lexically-scoped subs, e.g. my sub | |
147 | ||
148 | =back | |
149 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
150 | =head1 Perl Internals |
151 | ||
152 | =head2 magic_setisa | |
153 | ||
154 | C<magic_setisa> should be made to update %FIELDS [???] | |
155 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
156 | =head2 Garbage Collection |
157 | ||
158 | There was talk of a mark-and-sweep garbage collector at TPC2, but the | |
159 | (to users) unpredictable nature of its behaviour put some off. | |
160 | Sarathy, I believe, did the work. Here's what he has to say: | |
161 | ||
162 | Yeah, I hope to implement it someday too. The points that were | |
163 | raised in TPC2 were all to do with calling DESTROY() methods, but | |
164 | I think we can accomodate that by extending bless() to stash | |
165 | extra information for objects so we track their lifetime accurately | |
166 | for those that want their DESTROY() to be predictable (this will be | |
167 | a speed hit, naturally, and will therefore be optional, naturally. :) | |
c47ff5f1 | 168 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
169 | [N.B. Don't even ask me about this now! When I have the time to |
170 | write a cogent summary, I'll post it.] | |
171 | ||
172 | =head2 Reliable signals | |
173 | ||
174 | Sarathy and Dan Sugalski are working on this. Chip posted a patch | |
175 | earlier, but it was not accepted into 5.005. The issue is tricky, | |
176 | because it has the potential to greatly slow down the core. | |
177 | ||
178 | There are at least three things to consider: | |
179 | ||
180 | =over 4 | |
181 | ||
182 | =item Alternate runops() for signal despatch | |
183 | ||
184 | Sarathy and Dan are discussed this on perl5-porters. | |
185 | ||
186 | =item Figure out how to die() in delayed sighandler | |
187 | ||
188 | =item Add tests for Thread::Signal | |
189 | ||
190 | =item Automatic tests against CPAN | |
191 | ||
192 | Is there some way to automatically build all/most of CPAN with | |
193 | the new Perl and check that the modules there pass all the tests? | |
194 | ||
195 | =back | |
196 | ||
197 | =head2 Interpolated regex performance bugs | |
198 | ||
199 | while (<>) { | |
200 | $found = 0; | |
201 | foreach $pat (@patterns) { | |
202 | $found++ if /$pat/o; | |
203 | } | |
204 | print if $found; | |
205 | } | |
206 | ||
207 | The qr// syntax added in 5.005 has solved this problem, but | |
208 | it needs more thorough documentation. | |
209 | ||
210 | =head2 Memory leaks from failed eval/regcomp | |
211 | ||
212 | The only known memory leaks in Perl are in failed code or regexp | |
213 | compilation. Fix this. Hugo Van Der Sanden will attempt this but | |
214 | won't have tuits until January 1999. | |
215 | ||
216 | =head2 Make XS easier to use | |
217 | ||
218 | There was interest in SWIG from porters, but nothing has happened | |
219 | lately. | |
220 | ||
221 | =head2 Make embedded Perl easier to use | |
222 | ||
223 | This is probably difficult for the same reasons that "XS For Dummies" | |
224 | will be difficult. | |
225 | ||
226 | =head2 Namespace cleanup | |
227 | ||
04c70446 | 228 | CPP-space: restrict CPP symbols exported from headers |
e50bb9a1 GS |
229 | header-space: move into CORE/perl/ |
230 | API-space: begin list of things that constitute public api | |
766b5730 | 231 | env-space: Configure should use PERL_CONFIG instead of CONFIG etc. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
232 | |
233 | =head2 MULTIPLICITY | |
234 | ||
235 | Complete work on safe recursive interpreters C<Perl-E<gt>new()>. | |
236 | Sarathy says that a reference implementation exists. | |
237 | ||
238 | =head2 MacPerl | |
239 | ||
240 | Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher are working on better integrating | |
241 | MacPerl into the Perl distribution. | |
242 | ||
243 | =head1 Documentation | |
244 | ||
245 | There's a lot of documentation that comes with Perl. The quantity of | |
246 | documentation makes it difficult for users to know which section of | |
247 | which manpage to read in order to solve their problem. Tom | |
248 | Christiansen has done much of the documentation work in the past. | |
249 | ||
250 | =head2 A clear division into tutorial and reference | |
251 | ||
252 | Some manpages (e.g., perltoot and perlreftut) clearly set out to | |
253 | educate the reader about a subject. Other manpages (e.g., perlsub) | |
254 | are references for which there is no tutorial, or are references with | |
255 | a slight tutorial bent. If things are either tutorial or reference, | |
256 | then the reader knows which manpage to read to learn about a subject, | |
257 | and which manpage to read to learn all about an aspect of that | |
258 | subject. Part of the solution to this is: | |
259 | ||
260 | =head2 Remove the artificial distinction between operators and functions | |
261 | ||
262 | History shows us that users, and often porters, aren't clear on the | |
263 | operator-function distinction. The present split in reference | |
264 | material between perlfunc and perlop hinders user navigation. Given | |
265 | that perlfunc is by far the larger of the two, move operator reference | |
266 | into perlfunc. | |
267 | ||
268 | =head2 More tutorials | |
269 | ||
270 | More documents of a tutorial nature could help. Here are some | |
271 | candidates: | |
272 | ||
273 | =over 4 | |
274 | ||
275 | =item Regular expressions | |
276 | ||
277 | Robin Berjon (r.berjon@ltconsulting.net) has volunteered. | |
278 | ||
279 | =item I/O | |
280 | ||
281 | Mark-Jason Dominus (mjd@plover.com) has an outline for perliotut. | |
282 | ||
283 | =item pack/unpack | |
284 | ||
285 | This is badly needed. There has been some discussion on the | |
286 | subject on perl5-porters. | |
287 | ||
288 | =item Debugging | |
289 | ||
290 | Ronald Kimball (rjk@linguist.dartmouth.edu) has volunteered. | |
291 | ||
a45bd81d GS |
292 | =back |
293 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
294 | =head2 Include a search tool |
295 | ||
296 | perldoc should be able to 'grep' fulltext indices of installed POD | |
297 | files. This would let people say: | |
298 | ||
299 | perldoc -find printing numbers with commas | |
300 | ||
301 | and get back the perlfaq entry on 'commify'. | |
302 | ||
303 | This solution, however, requires documentation to contain the keywords | |
304 | the user is searching for. Even when the users know what they're | |
305 | looking for, often they can't spell it. | |
306 | ||
307 | =head2 Include a locate tool | |
308 | ||
309 | perldoc should be able to help people find the manpages on a | |
310 | particular high-level subject: | |
311 | ||
312 | perldoc -find web | |
313 | ||
314 | would tell them manpages, web pages, and books with material on web | |
315 | programming. Similarly C<perldoc -find databases>, C<perldoc -find | |
316 | references> and so on. | |
317 | ||
318 | We need something in the vicinity of: | |
319 | ||
320 | % perl -help random stuff | |
321 | No documentation for perl function `random stuff' found | |
322 | The following entry in perlfunc.pod matches /random/a: | |
323 | =item rand EXPR | |
c47ff5f1 | 324 | |
e50bb9a1 | 325 | =item rand |
c47ff5f1 | 326 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
327 | Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to C<0> and less |
328 | than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is | |
329 | omitted, the value C<1> is used. Automatically calls C<srand()> unless | |
330 | C<srand()> has already been called. See also C<srand()>. | |
c47ff5f1 | 331 | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
332 | (Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are too |
333 | large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably compiled | |
334 | with the wrong number of RANDBITS.) | |
335 | The following pod pages seem to have /stuff/a: | |
336 | perlfunc.pod (7 hits) | |
337 | perlfaq7.pod (6 hits) | |
338 | perlmod.pod (4 hits) | |
339 | perlsyn.pod (3 hits) | |
340 | perlfaq8.pod (2 hits) | |
341 | perlipc.pod (2 hits) | |
342 | perl5004delta.pod (1 hit) | |
343 | perl5005delta.pod (1 hit) | |
344 | perlcall.pod (1 hit) | |
345 | perldelta.pod (1 hit) | |
346 | perlfaq3.pod (1 hit) | |
347 | perlfaq5.pod (1 hit) | |
348 | perlhist.pod (1 hit) | |
349 | perlref.pod (1 hit) | |
350 | perltoc.pod (1 hit) | |
351 | perltrap.pod (1 hit) | |
352 | Proceed to open perlfunc.pod? [y] n | |
353 | Do you want to speak perl interactively? [y] n | |
354 | Should I dial 911? [y] n | |
355 | Do you need psychiatric help? [y] y | |
356 | <PELIZA> Hi, what bothers you today? | |
357 | A Python programmer in the next cubby is driving me nuts! | |
358 | <PELIZA> Hmm, thats fixable. Just [rest censored] | |
359 | ||
360 | =head2 Separate function manpages by default | |
361 | ||
362 | Perl should install 'manpages' for every function/operator into the | |
363 | 3pl or 3p manual section. By default. The splitman program in the | |
364 | Perl source distribution does the work of turning big perlfunc into | |
365 | little 3p pages. | |
366 | ||
367 | =head2 Users can't find the manpages | |
368 | ||
369 | Make C<perldoc> tell users what they need to add to their .login or | |
370 | .cshrc to set their MANPATH correctly. | |
371 | ||
372 | =head2 Install ALL Documentation | |
373 | ||
374 | Make the standard documentation kit include the VMS, OS/2, Win32, | |
3724d6f4 JD |
375 | Threads, etc information. installperl and pod/Makefile should know |
376 | enough to copy README.foo to perlfoo.pod before building everything, | |
377 | when appropriate. | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
378 | |
379 | =head2 Outstanding issues to be documented | |
380 | ||
381 | Tom has a list of 5.005_5* features or changes that require | |
382 | documentation. | |
383 | ||
384 | Create one document that coherently explains the delta between the | |
385 | last camel release and the current release. perldelta was supposed | |
386 | to be that, but no longer. The things in perldelta never seemed to | |
387 | get placed in the right places in the real manpages, either. This | |
388 | needs work. | |
389 | ||
04c70446 GS |
390 | =head2 Adapt www.linuxhq.com for Perl |
391 | ||
392 | This should help glorify documentation and get more people involved in | |
393 | perl development. | |
394 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
395 | =head2 Replace man with a perl program |
396 | ||
397 | Can we reimplement man in Perl? Tom has a start. I believe some of | |
398 | the Linux systems distribute a manalike. Alternatively, build on | |
399 | perldoc to remove the unfeatures like "is slow" and "has no apropos". | |
400 | ||
401 | =head2 Unicode tutorial | |
402 | ||
403 | We could use more work on helping people understand Perl's new | |
404 | Unicode support that Larry has created. | |
405 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
406 | =head1 Modules |
407 | ||
408 | =head2 Update the POSIX extension to conform with the POSIX 1003.1 Edition 2 | |
409 | ||
410 | The current state of the POSIX extension is as of Edition 1, 1991, | |
411 | whereas the Edition 2 came out in 1996. ISO/IEC 9945:1-1996(E), | |
412 | ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 Edition. ISBN 1-55937-573-6. The updates | |
413 | were legion: threads, IPC, and real time extensions. | |
414 | ||
415 | =head2 Module versions | |
416 | ||
417 | Automate the checking of versions in the standard distribution so | |
418 | it's easy for a pumpking to check whether CPAN has a newer version | |
419 | that we should be including? | |
420 | ||
421 | =head2 New modules | |
422 | ||
423 | Which modules should be added to the standard distribution? This ties | |
424 | in with the SDK discussed on the perl-sdk list at perl.org. | |
425 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
426 | =head2 Profiler |
427 | ||
428 | Make the profiler (Devel::DProf) part of the standard release, and | |
429 | document it well. | |
430 | ||
431 | =head2 Tie Modules | |
432 | ||
433 | =over 4 | |
434 | ||
435 | =item VecArray | |
436 | ||
437 | Implement array using vec(). Nathan Torkington has working code to | |
438 | do this. | |
439 | ||
440 | =item SubstrArray | |
441 | ||
442 | Implement array using substr() | |
443 | ||
444 | =item VirtualArray | |
445 | ||
446 | Implement array using a file | |
447 | ||
448 | =item ShiftSplice | |
449 | ||
450 | Defines shift et al in terms of splice method | |
451 | ||
452 | =back | |
453 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
454 | =head2 Procedural options |
455 | ||
456 | Support procedural interfaces for the common cases of Perl's | |
457 | gratuitously OOO modules. Tom objects to "use IO::File" reading many | |
458 | thousands of lines of code. | |
459 | ||
460 | =head2 RPC | |
461 | ||
462 | Write a module for transparent, portable remote procedure calls. (Not | |
463 | core). This touches on the CORBA and ILU work. | |
464 | ||
465 | =head2 y2k localtime/gmtime | |
466 | ||
467 | Write a module, Y2k::Catch, which overloads localtime and gmtime's | |
468 | returned year value and catches "bad" attempts to use it. | |
469 | ||
470 | =head2 Export File::Find variables | |
471 | ||
472 | Make File::Find export C<$name> etc manually, at least if asked to. | |
473 | ||
474 | =head2 Ioctl | |
475 | ||
476 | Finish a proper Ioctl module. | |
477 | ||
478 | =head2 Debugger attach/detach | |
479 | ||
480 | Permit a user to debug an already-running program. | |
481 | ||
482 | =head2 Regular Expression debugger | |
483 | ||
484 | Create a visual profiler/debugger tool that stepped you through the | |
485 | execution of a regular expression point by point. Ilya has a module | |
486 | to color-code and display regular expression parses and executions. | |
487 | There's something at http://tkworld.org/ that might be a good start, | |
488 | it's a Tk/Tcl RE wizard, that builds regexen of many flavours. | |
489 | ||
490 | =head2 Alternative RE Syntax | |
491 | ||
492 | Make an alternative regular expression syntax that is accessed through | |
493 | a module. For instance, | |
494 | ||
495 | use RE; | |
496 | $re = start_of_line() | |
497 | ->literal("1998/10/08") | |
498 | ->optional( whitespace() ) | |
499 | ->literal("[") | |
500 | ->remember( many( or( "-", digit() ) ) ); | |
501 | ||
502 | if (/$re/) { | |
503 | print "time is $1\n"; | |
504 | } | |
505 | ||
506 | Newbies to regular expressions typically only use a subset of the full | |
507 | language. Perhaps you wouldn't have to implement the full feature set. | |
508 | ||
509 | =head2 Bundled modules | |
510 | ||
511 | Nicholas Clark (nick@flirble.org) had a patch for storing modules in | |
512 | zipped format. This needs exploring and concluding. | |
513 | ||
514 | =head2 Expect | |
515 | ||
516 | Adopt IO::Tty, make it as portable as Don Libes' "expect" (can we link | |
517 | against expect code?), and perfect a Perl version of expect. IO::Tty | |
518 | and expect could then be distributed as part of the core distribution, | |
519 | replacing Comm.pl and other hacks. | |
520 | ||
521 | =head2 GUI::Native | |
522 | ||
523 | A simple-to-use interface to native graphical abilities would | |
524 | be welcomed. Oh, Perl's access Tk is nice enough, and reasonably | |
525 | portable, but it's not particularly as fast as one would like. | |
526 | Simple access to the mouse's cut buffer or mouse-presses shouldn't | |
527 | required loading a few terabytes of Tk code. | |
528 | ||
529 | =head2 Update semibroken auxiliary tools; h2ph, a2p, etc. | |
530 | ||
531 | Kurt Starsinic is working on h2ph. mjd has fixed bugs in a2p in the | |
532 | past. a2p apparently doesn't work on nawk and gawk extensions. | |
533 | Graham Barr has an Include module that does h2ph work at runtime. | |
534 | ||
535 | =head2 POD Converters | |
536 | ||
537 | Brad's PodParser code needs to become part of the core, and the Pod::* | |
538 | and pod2* programs rewritten to use this standard parser. Currently | |
539 | the converters take different options, some behave in different | |
540 | fashions, and some are more picky than others in terms of the POD | |
541 | files they accept. | |
542 | ||
543 | =head2 pod2html | |
544 | ||
545 | A short-term fix: pod2html generates absolute HTML links. Make it | |
546 | generate relative links. | |
547 | ||
548 | =head2 Podchecker | |
549 | ||
550 | Something like lint for Pod would be good. Something that catches | |
551 | common errors as well as gross ones. Brad Appleton is putting | |
552 | together something as part of his PodParser work. | |
553 | ||
554 | =head1 Tom's Wishes | |
555 | ||
556 | =head2 Webperl | |
557 | ||
558 | Design a webperl environment that's as tightly integrated and as | |
559 | easy-to-use as Perl's current command-line environment. | |
560 | ||
561 | =head2 Mobile agents | |
562 | ||
563 | More work on a safe and secure execution environment for mobile | |
564 | agents would be neat; the Safe.pm module is a start, but there's a | |
565 | still a lot to be done in that area. Adopt Penguin? | |
566 | ||
567 | =head2 POSIX on non-POSIX | |
568 | ||
569 | Standard programming constructs for non-POSIX systems would help a | |
570 | lot of programmers stuck on primitive, legacy systems. For example, | |
571 | Microsoft still hasn't made a usable POSIX interface on their clunky | |
572 | systems, which means that standard operations such as alarm() and | |
573 | fork(), both critical for sophisticated client-server programming, | |
574 | must both be kludged around. | |
575 | ||
576 | I'm unsure whether Tom means to emulate alarm( )and fork(), or merely | |
577 | to provide a document like perlport.pod to say which features are | |
578 | portable and which are not. | |
579 | ||
580 | =head2 Portable installations | |
581 | ||
582 | Figure out a portable semi-gelled installation, that is, one without | |
583 | full paths. Larry has said that he's thinking about this. Ilya | |
584 | pointed out that perllib_mangle() is good for this. | |
585 | ||
586 | =head1 Win32 Stuff | |
587 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
588 | =head2 Rename new headers to be consistent with the rest |
589 | ||
590 | =head2 Sort out the spawnvp() mess | |
591 | ||
592 | =head2 Work out DLL versioning | |
593 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
594 | =head2 Style-check |
595 | ||
596 | =head1 Would be nice to have | |
597 | ||
598 | =over 4 | |
599 | ||
600 | =item C<pack "(stuff)*"> | |
601 | ||
602 | =item Contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack | |
603 | ||
604 | =item lexperl | |
605 | ||
606 | =item Bundled perl preprocessor | |
607 | ||
608 | =item Use posix calls internally where possible | |
609 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
610 | =item format BOTTOM |
611 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
612 | =item -i rename file only when successfully changed |
613 | ||
614 | =item All ARGV input should act like <> | |
615 | ||
616 | =item report HANDLE [formats]. | |
617 | ||
618 | =item support in perlmain to rerun debugger | |
619 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
620 | =item lvalue functions |
621 | ||
622 | Tuomas Lukka, on behalf of the PDL project, greatly desires this and | |
623 | Ilya has a patch for it (probably against an older version of Perl). | |
624 | Tuomas points out that what PDL really wants is lvalue I<methods>, | |
625 | not just subs. | |
626 | ||
627 | =back | |
628 | ||
629 | =head1 Possible pragmas | |
630 | ||
631 | =head2 'less' | |
632 | ||
633 | (use less memory, CPU) | |
634 | ||
635 | =head1 Optimizations | |
636 | ||
637 | =head2 constant function cache | |
638 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
639 | =head2 foreach(reverse...) |
640 | ||
641 | =head2 Cache eval tree | |
642 | ||
643 | Unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?). | |
644 | ||
645 | =head2 rcatmaybe | |
646 | ||
647 | =head2 Shrink opcode tables | |
648 | ||
649 | Via multiple implementations selected in peep. | |
650 | ||
651 | =head2 Cache hash value | |
652 | ||
653 | Not a win, according to Guido. | |
654 | ||
655 | =head2 Optimize away @_ where possible | |
656 | ||
657 | =head2 Optimize sort by { $a <=> $b } | |
658 | ||
659 | Greg Bacon added several more sort optimizations. These have | |
660 | made it into 5.005_55, thanks to Hans Mulder. | |
661 | ||
662 | =head2 Rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization | |
663 | ||
664 | The regexp parser was rewritten for 5.005. Ilya's the regexp guru. | |
665 | ||
666 | =head1 Vague possibilities | |
667 | ||
668 | =over 4 | |
669 | ||
670 | =item ref function in list context | |
671 | ||
672 | This seems impossible to do without substantially breaking code. | |
673 | ||
674 | =item make tr/// return histogram in list context? | |
675 | ||
676 | =item Loop control on do{} et al | |
677 | ||
678 | =item Explicit switch statements | |
679 | ||
680 | Nobody has yet managed to come up with a switch syntax that would | |
681 | allow for mixed hash, constant, regexp checks. Submit implementation | |
682 | with syntax, please. | |
683 | ||
684 | =item compile to real threaded code | |
685 | ||
686 | =item structured types | |
687 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
688 | =item Modifiable $1 et al |
689 | ||
690 | The intent is for this to be a means of editing the matched portions of | |
691 | the target string. | |
692 | ||
693 | =back | |
694 | ||
695 | =head1 To Do Or Not To Do | |
696 | ||
697 | These are things that have been discussed in the past and roundly | |
698 | criticized for being of questionable value. | |
699 | ||
700 | =head2 Making my() work on "package" variables | |
701 | ||
702 | Being able to say my($Foo::Bar), something that sounds ludicrous and | |
87275199 | 703 | the 5.6 pumpking has mocked. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
704 | |
705 | =head2 "or" testing defined not truth | |
706 | ||
707 | We tell people that C<||> can be used to give a default value to a | |
708 | variable: | |
709 | ||
710 | $children = shift || 5; # default is 5 children | |
711 | ||
712 | which is almost (but not): | |
713 | ||
714 | $children = shift; | |
715 | $children = 5 unless $children; | |
716 | ||
717 | but if the first argument was given and is "0", then it will be | |
718 | considered false by C<||> and C<5> used instead. Really we want | |
04c70446 | 719 | an C<||>-like operator that behaves like: |
e50bb9a1 GS |
720 | |
721 | $children = shift; | |
722 | $children = 5 unless defined $children; | |
723 | ||
04c70446 GS |
724 | Namely, a C<||> that tests defined-ness rather than truth. One was |
725 | discussed, and a patch submitted, but the objections were many. While | |
726 | there were objections, many still feel the need. At least it was | |
727 | decided that C<??> is the best name for the operator. | |
e50bb9a1 GS |
728 | |
729 | =head2 "dynamic" lexicals | |
730 | ||
731 | my $x; | |
732 | sub foo { | |
733 | local $x; | |
734 | } | |
735 | ||
736 | Localizing, as Tim Bunce points out, is a separate concept from | |
737 | whether the variable is global or lexical. Chip Salzenberg had | |
738 | an implementation once, but Larry thought it had potential to | |
739 | confuse. | |
740 | ||
741 | =head2 "class"-based, rather than package-based "lexicals" | |
742 | ||
743 | This is like what the Alias module provides, but the variables would | |
744 | be lexicals reserved by perl at compile-time, which really are indices | |
745 | pointing into the pseudo-hash object visible inside every method so | |
746 | declared. | |
747 | ||
748 | =head1 Threading | |
749 | ||
750 | =head2 Modules | |
751 | ||
752 | Which of the standard modules are thread-safe? Which CPAN modules? | |
753 | How easy is it to fix those non-safe modules? | |
754 | ||
755 | =head2 Testing | |
756 | ||
757 | Threading is still experimental. Every reproducible bug identifies | |
758 | something else for us to fix. Find and submit more of these problems. | |
759 | ||
760 | =head2 $AUTOLOAD | |
761 | ||
762 | =head2 exit/die | |
763 | ||
764 | Consistent semantics for exit/die in threads. | |
765 | ||
766 | =head2 External threads | |
767 | ||
768 | Better support for externally created threads. | |
769 | ||
770 | =head2 Thread::Pool | |
771 | ||
772 | =head2 thread-safety | |
773 | ||
774 | Spot-check globals like statcache and global GVs for thread-safety. | |
775 | "B<Part done>", says Sarathy. | |
776 | ||
777 | =head2 Per-thread GVs | |
778 | ||
779 | According to Sarathy, this would make @_ be the same in threaded | |
780 | and non-threaded, as well as helping solve problems like filehandles | |
781 | (the same filehandle currently cannot be used in two threads). | |
782 | ||
783 | =head1 Compiler | |
784 | ||
785 | =head2 Optimization | |
786 | ||
787 | The compiler's back-end code-generators for creating bytecode or | |
788 | compilable C code could use optimization work. | |
789 | ||
790 | =head2 Byteperl | |
791 | ||
792 | Figure out how and where byteperl will be built for the various | |
793 | platforms. | |
794 | ||
795 | =head2 Precompiled modules | |
796 | ||
797 | Save byte-compiled modules on disk. | |
798 | ||
799 | =head2 Executables | |
800 | ||
801 | Auto-produce executable. | |
802 | ||
803 | =head2 Typed lexicals | |
804 | ||
805 | Typed lexicals should affect B::CC::load_pad. | |
806 | ||
807 | =head2 Win32 | |
808 | ||
809 | Workarounds to help Win32 dynamic loading. | |
810 | ||
e50bb9a1 GS |
811 | =head2 END blocks |
812 | ||
7d30b5c4 | 813 | END blocks need saving in compiled output, now that CHECK blocks |
4f25aa18 | 814 | are available. |
e50bb9a1 GS |
815 | |
816 | =head2 _AUTOLOAD | |
817 | ||
818 | _AUTOLOAD prodding. | |
819 | ||
820 | =head2 comppadlist | |
821 | ||
822 | Fix comppadlist (names in comppad_name can have fake SvCUR | |
823 | from where newASSIGNOP steals the field). | |
824 | ||
825 | =head2 Cached compilation | |
826 | ||
827 | Can we install modules as bytecode? | |
828 | ||
04c70446 GS |
829 | =head1 Recently Finished Tasks |
830 | ||
2b92dfce GS |
831 | =head2 Figure a way out of $^(capital letter) |
832 | ||
833 | Figure out a clean way to extend $^(capital letter) beyond | |
834 | the 26 alphabets. (${^WORD} maybe?) | |
835 | ||
836 | Mark-Jason Dominus sent a patch which went into 5.005_56. | |
837 | ||
04c70446 GS |
838 | =head2 Filenames |
839 | ||
3a4b19e4 | 840 | Keep filenames in the distribution and in the standard module set |
04c70446 | 841 | be 8.3 friendly where feasible. Good luck changing the standard |
3a4b19e4 | 842 | modules, though. |
04c70446 GS |
843 | |
844 | =head2 Foreign lines | |
845 | ||
846 | Perl should be more generous in accepting foreign line terminations. | |
847 | Mostly B<done> in 5.005. | |
848 | ||
849 | =head2 Namespace cleanup | |
850 | ||
851 | symbol-space: "pl_" prefix for all global vars | |
852 | "Perl_" prefix for all functions | |
853 | ||
854 | CPP-space: stop malloc()/free() pollution unless asked | |
855 | ||
04c70446 GS |
856 | =head2 ISA.pm |
857 | ||
858 | Rename and alter ISA.pm. B<Done>. It is now base.pm. | |
859 | ||
04c70446 GS |
860 | =head2 gettimeofday |
861 | ||
862 | See Time::HiRes. | |
863 | ||
04c70446 GS |
864 | =head2 autocroak? |
865 | ||
3a4b19e4 | 866 | This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that that does |
04c70446 GS |
867 | not return success automatically die()s. If you're feeling brave, tie |
868 | this in with the unified exceptions scheme. | |
869 | ||
e50bb9a1 | 870 | =cut |