=head1 DESCRIPTION
-This is a list of wishes for Perl. It is maintained by Nathan
-Torkington for the Perl porters. Send updates to
+This is a list of wishes for Perl. Send updates to
I<perl5-porters@perl.org>. If you want to work on any of these
projects, be sure to check the perl5-porters archives for past ideas,
flames, and propaganda. This will save you time and also prevent you
http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/
+=head1 assertions
-=head1 Infrastructure
+Clean up and finish support for assertions. See L<assertions>.
-=head2 Mailing list archives
+=head1 iCOW
-Chaim suggests contacting egroup and asking them to archive the other
-perl.org mailing lists. Probably not advocacy, but definitely
-perl6-porters, etc.
+Sarathy and Arthur have a proposal for an improved Copy On Write which
+specifically will be able to COW new ithreads. If this can be implemented
+it would be a good thing.
-=head2 Bug tracking system
+=head1 (?{...}) closures in regexps
-Richard Foley I<richard@perl.org> is writing one. We looked at
-several, like gnats and the Debian system, but at the time we
-investigated them, none met our needs. Since then, Jitterbug has
-matured, and may be worth reinvestigation.
+Fix (or rewrite) the implementation of the C</(?{...})/> closures.
-The system we've developed is the recipient of perlbug mail, and any
-followups it generates from perl5-porters. New bugs are entered
-into a mysql database, and sent on to
-perl5-porters with the subject line rewritten to include a "ticket
-number" (unique ID for the new bug). If the incoming message already
-had a ticket number in the subject line, then the message is logged
-against that bug. There is a separate email interface (not forwarding
-to p5p) that permits porters to claim, categorize, and close tickets.
+=head1 pragmata
-There is also a web interface to the system at http://bugs.perl.org.
+=head2 lexical pragmas
-The current delay in implementation is caused by perl.org lockups.
-One suspect is the mail handling system, possibly going into loops.
+Reimplement the mechanism of lexical pragmas to be more extensible. Fix
+current pragmas that don't work well (or at all) with lexical scopes or in
+run-time eval(STRING) (C<sort>, C<re>, C<encoding> for example). MJD has a
+preliminary patch that implements this.
-We still desperately need a bugmaster, someone who will look at
-every new "bug" and kill those that we already know about, those
-that are not bugs at all, etc.
+=head2 use less 'memory'
-=head2 Regression Tests
+Investigate trade offs to switch out perl's choices on memory usage.
+Particularly perl should be able to give memory back.
-The test suite for Perl serves two needs: ensuring features work, and
-ensuring old bugs have not been reintroduced. Both need work.
+=head1 prototypes and functions
-Brent LaVelle (lavelle@metronet.com) has stepped forward to work on
-performance tests and improving the size of the test suite.
+=head2 _ prototype character
-=over 4
+Study the possibility of adding a new prototype character, C<_>, meaning
+"this argument defaults to $_".
-=item Coverage
+=head2 inlining autoloaded constants
-Do the tests that come with Perl exercise every line (or every block,
-or ...) of the Perl interpreter, and if not then how can we make them
-do so?
+Currently the optimiser can inline constants when expressed as subroutines
+with prototype ($) that return a constant. Likewise, many packages wrapping
+C libraries export lots of constants as subroutines which are AUTOLOADed on
+demand. However, these have no prototypes, so can't be seen as constants by
+the optimiser. Some way of cheaply (low syntax, low memory overhead) to the
+perl compiler that a name is a constant would be great, so that it knows to
+call the AUTOLOAD routine at compile time, and then inline the constant.
-=item Regression
+=head2 Finish off lvalue functions
-No bug fixes should be made without a corresponding testsuite addition.
-This needs a dedicated enforcer, as the current pumpking is either too
-lazy or too stupid or both and lets enforcement wander all over the
-map. :-)
+The old perltodo notes "They don't work in the debugger, and they don't work for
+list or hash slices."
-=item __DIE__
+=head1 Unicode and UTF8
-Tests that fail need to be of a form that can be readily mailed
-to perlbug and diagnosed with minimal back-and-forth's to determine
-which test failed, due to what cause, etc.
+=head2 Implicit Latin 1 => Unicode translation
-=item suidperl
+Conversions from byte strings to UTF-8 currently map high bit characters
+to Unicode without translation (or, depending on how you look at it, by
+implicitly assuming that the byte strings are in Latin-1). As perl assumes
+the C locale by default, upgrading a string to UTF-8 may change the
+meaning of its contents regarding character classes, case mapping, etc.
+This should probably emit a warning (at least).
-We need regression/sanity tests for suidperl
+=head2 UTF8 caching code
-=item The 25% slowdown from perl4 to perl5
+The string position/offset cache is not optional. It should be.
-This value may or may not be accurate, but it certainly is
-eye-catching. For some things perl5 is faster than perl4, but often
-the reliability and extensibility have come at a cost of speed. The
-benchmark suite that Gisle released earlier has been hailed as both a
-fantastic solution and as a source of entirely meaningless figures.
-Do we need to test "real applications"? Can you do so? Anyone have
-machines to dedicate to the task? Identify the things that have grown
-slower, and see if there's a way to make them faster.
+=head2 Unicode in Filenames
-=back
+chdir, chmod, chown, chroot, exec, glob, link, lstat, mkdir, open,
+opendir, qx, readdir, readlink, rename, rmdir, stat, symlink, sysopen,
+system, truncate, unlink, utime, -X. All these could potentially accept
+Unicode filenames either as input or output (and in the case of system
+and qx Unicode in general, as input or output to/from the shell).
+Whether a filesystem - an operating system pair understands Unicode in
+filenames varies.
-=head1 Configure
+Known combinations that have some level of understanding include
+Microsoft NTFS, Apple HFS+ (In Mac OS 9 and X) and Apple UFS (in Mac
+OS X), NFS v4 is rumored to be Unicode, and of course Plan 9. How to
+create Unicode filenames, what forms of Unicode are accepted and used
+(UCS-2, UTF-16, UTF-8), what (if any) is the normalization form used,
+and so on, varies. Finding the right level of interfacing to Perl
+requires some thought. Remember that an OS does not implicate a
+filesystem.
-Andy Dougherty maintain(ed|s) a list of "todo" items for the configure
-that comes with Perl. See Porting/pumpkin.pod in the latest
-source release.
+(The Windows -C command flag "wide API support" has been at least
+temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the -C has been repurposed, see
+L<perlrun>.)
-=head2 Install HTML
+=head2 Unicode in %ENV
-Have "make install" give you the option to install HTML as well. This
-would be part of Configure. Andy Wardley (certified Perl studmuffin)
-will look into the current problems of HTML installation--is
-'installhtml' preventing this from happening cleanly, or is pod2html
-the problem? If the latter, Brad Appleton's pod work may fix the
-problem for free.
+Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings.
-=head1 Perl Language
+=head1 Regexps
-=head2 our ($var)
+=head2 regexp optimiser optional
-Declare global variables (lexically or otherwise).
+The regexp optimiser is not optional. It should configurable to be, to allow
+its performance to be measured, and its bugs to be easily demonstrated.
-=head2 64-bit Perl
+=head2 common suffices/prefices in regexps (trie optimization)
-Verify complete 64 bit support so that the value of sysseek, or C<-s>, or
-stat(), or tell can fit into a perl number without losing precision.
-Work with the perl-64bit mailing list on perl.org.
+Currently, the user has to optimize C<foo|far> and C<foo|goo> into
+C<f(?:oo|ar)> and C<[fg]oo> by hand; this could be done automatically.
-=head2 Prototypes
+=head1 POD
-=over 4
+=head2 POD -> HTML conversion still sucks
-=item Named prototypes
+Which is crazy given just how simple POD purports to be, and how simple HTML
+can be.
-Add proper named prototypes that actually work usefully.
+=head1 Misc medium sized projects
-=item Indirect objects
+=head2 UNITCHECK
-Fix prototype bug that forgets indirect objects.
+Introduce a new special block, UNITCHECK, which is run at the end of a
+compilation unit (module, file, eval(STRING) block). This will correspond to
+the Perl 6 CHECK. Perl 5's CHECK cannot be changed or removed because the
+O.pm/B.pm backend framework depends on it.
-=item Method calls
+=head2 optional optimizer
-Prototypes for method calls.
+Make the peephole optimizer optional.
-=item Context
+=head2 You WANT *how* many
-Return context prototype declarations.
+Currently contexts are void, scalar and list. sort has a special mechanism in
+place to pass in the number of return values wanted. It would be useful to
+have a general mechanism for this, backwards compatible and little speed hit.
+This would allow proposals such as short circuiting sort to be implemented
+as a module on CPAN.
-=item Scoped subs
+=head2 lexical aliases
-lexically-scoped subs, e.g. my sub
+Allow lexical aliases (maybe via the syntax C<my \$alias = \$foo>.
-=back
+=head2 no 6
-=head1 Perl Internals
+Make C<no 6> and C<no v6> work (opposite of C<use 5.005>, etc.).
-=head2 magic_setisa
+=head2 IPv6
-C<magic_setisa> should be made to update %FIELDS [???]
+Clean this up. Check everything in core works
-=head2 Garbage Collection
+=head2 entersub XS vs Perl
-There was talk of a mark-and-sweep garbage collector at TPC2, but the
-(to users) unpredictable nature of its behaviour put some off.
-Sarathy, I believe, did the work. Here's what he has to say:
+At the moment pp_entersub is huge, and has code to deal with entering both
+perl and and XS subroutines. Subroutine implementations rarely change between
+perl and XS at run time, so investigate using 2 ops to enter subs (one for
+XS, one for perl) and swap between if a sub is redefined.
-Yeah, I hope to implement it someday too. The points that were
-raised in TPC2 were all to do with calling DESTROY() methods, but
-I think we can accommodate that by extending bless() to stash
-extra information for objects so we track their lifetime accurately
-for those that want their DESTROY() to be predictable (this will be
-a speed hit, naturally, and will therefore be optional, naturally. :)
+=head2 @INC source filter to Filter::Simple
-[N.B. Don't even ask me about this now! When I have the time to
-write a cogent summary, I'll post it.]
+The second return value from a sub in @INC can be a source filter. This isn't
+documented. It should be changed to use Filter::Simple, tested and documented.
-=head2 Reliable signals
+=head2 bincompat functions
-Sarathy and Dan Sugalski are working on this. Chip posted a patch
-earlier, but it was not accepted into 5.005. The issue is tricky,
-because it has the potential to greatly slow down the core.
+There are lots of functions which are retained for binary compatibility.
+Clean these up. Move them to mathom.c, and don't compile for blead?
-There are at least three things to consider:
+=head2 Use fchown/fchmod internally
-=over 4
+The old perltodo notes "This has been done in places, but needs a thorough
+code review. Also fchdir is available in some platforms."
-=item Alternate runops() for signal despatch
+=head2 foreach reverse
-Sarathy and Dan are discussed this on perl5-porters.
+The old perltodo notes that we could optimise foreach to iterate in reverse.
+(instead of making a reversed copy on the stack)
-=item Figure out how to die() in delayed sighandler
+=head1 Tests
-=item Add tests for Thread::Signal
+=head2 Make Schwern poorer
-=item Automatic tests against CPAN
+Tests for everything, At which point Schwern coughs up $500 to TPF.
-Is there some way to automatically build all/most of CPAN with
-the new Perl and check that the modules there pass all the tests?
+=head2 test B
-=back
+A test suite for the B module would be nice.
-=head2 Interpolated regex performance bugs
+=head2 Improve tests for Config.pm
- while (<>) {
- $found = 0;
- foreach $pat (@patterns) {
- $found++ if /$pat/o;
- }
- print if $found;
- }
+Config.pm doesn't appear to be well tested.
-The qr// syntax added in 5.005 has solved this problem, but
-it needs more thorough documentation.
+=head2 common test code for timed bailout
-=head2 Memory leaks from failed eval/regcomp
+Write portable self destruct code for tests to stop them burning CPU in
+infinite loops. Needs to avoid using alarm, as some of the tests are testing
+alarm/sleep or timers.
-The only known memory leaks in Perl are in failed code or regexp
-compilation. Fix this. Hugo Van Der Sanden will attempt this but
-won't have tuits until January 1999.
+=head1 Installation
-=head2 Make XS easier to use
+=head2 compressed man pages
-There was interest in SWIG from porters, but nothing has happened
-lately.
+Be able to install them
-=head2 Make embedded Perl easier to use
+=head2 Make Config.pm cope with differences between build and installed perl
-This is probably difficult for the same reasons that "XS For Dummies"
-will be difficult.
+=head2 Relocatable perl
-=head2 Namespace cleanup
+Make it possible to create a relocatable perl binary. Will need some collusion
+with Config.pm. We could use a syntax of ... for location of current binary?
- CPP-space: restrict CPP symbols exported from headers
- header-space: move into CORE/perl/
- API-space: begin list of things that constitute public api
- env-space: Configure should use PERL_CONFIG instead of CONFIG etc.
+=head2 make HTML install work
-=head2 MULTIPLICITY
+=head2 put patchlevel in -v
-Complete work on safe recursive interpreters C<Perl-E<gt>new()>.
-Sarathy says that a reference implementation exists.
+Currently perl from p4/rsync ships with a patchlevel.h file that usually
+defines one local patch, of the form "MAINT12345" or "RC1". The output of
+perl -v doesn't report that a perl isn't an official release, and this
+information can get lost in bugs reports. Because of this, the minor version
+isn't bumped up util RC time, to minimise the possibility of versions of perl
+escaping that believe themselves to be newer than they actually are.
-=head2 MacPerl
+It would be useful to find an elegant way to have the "this is an interim
+maintenance release" or "this is a release candidate" in the terse -v output,
+and have it so that it's easy for the pumpking to remove this just as the
+release tarball is rolled up. This way the version pulled out of rsync would
+always say "I'm a development release" and it would be safe to bump the
+reported minor version as soon as a release ships, which would aid perl
+developers.
-Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher are working on better integrating
-MacPerl into the Perl distribution.
+=head1 Incremental things
-=head1 Documentation
+Some tasks that don't need to get done in one big hit.
-There's a lot of documentation that comes with Perl. The quantity of
-documentation makes it difficult for users to know which section of
-which manpage to read in order to solve their problem. Tom
-Christiansen has done much of the documentation work in the past.
+=head2 autovivification
-=head2 A clear division into tutorial and reference
+Make all autovivification consistent w.r.t LVALUE/RVALUE and strict/no strict;
-Some manpages (e.g., perltoot and perlreftut) clearly set out to
-educate the reader about a subject. Other manpages (e.g., perlsub)
-are references for which there is no tutorial, or are references with
-a slight tutorial bent. If things are either tutorial or reference,
-then the reader knows which manpage to read to learn about a subject,
-and which manpage to read to learn all about an aspect of that
-subject. Part of the solution to this is:
+=head2 fix tainting bugs
-=head2 Remove the artificial distinction between operators and functions
+Fix the bugs revealed by running the test suite with the C<-t> switch (via
+C<make test.taintwarn>).
-History shows us that users, and often porters, aren't clear on the
-operator-function distinction. The present split in reference
-material between perlfunc and perlop hinders user navigation. Given
-that perlfunc is by far the larger of the two, move operator reference
-into perlfunc.
+=head2 Make tainting consistent
-=head2 More tutorials
+Tainting would be easier to use if it didn't take documented shortcuts and allow
+taint to "leak" everywhere within an expression.
-More documents of a tutorial nature could help. Here are some
-candidates:
+=head2 Dual life everything
-=over 4
+As part of the "dists" plan, anything that doesn't belong in the smallest perl
+distribution needs to be dual lifed. Anything else can be too.
-=item Regular expressions
+=head1 Vague things
-Robin Berjon (r.berjon@ltconsulting.net) has volunteered.
+Some more nebulous ideas
-=item I/O
+=head2 threads
-Mark-Jason Dominus (mjd@plover.com) has an outline for perliotut.
+Make threads more robust.
-=item pack/unpack
+=head2 POSIX memory footprint
-This is badly needed. There has been some discussion on the
-subject on perl5-porters.
+Ilya observed that use POSIX; eats memory like there's no tomorrow, and at
+various times worked to cut it down. There is probably still fat to cut out -
+for example POSIX passes Exporter some very memory hungry data structures.
-=item Debugging
+=head2 Optimize away @_
-Ronald Kimball (rjk@linguist.dartmouth.edu) has volunteered.
+The old perltodo notes "Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c>"
-=back
+=head2 switch ops
-=head2 Include a search tool
+The old perltodo notes "Although we have C<Switch.pm> in core, Larry points to
+the dormant C<nswitch> and C<cswitch> ops in F<pp.c>; using these opcodes would
+be much faster."
-perldoc should be able to 'grep' fulltext indices of installed POD
-files. This would let people say:
+=head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program
- perldoc -find printing numbers with commas
+The old perltodo notes "With C<gdb>, you can attach the debugger to a running
+program if you pass the process ID. It would be good to do this with the Perl
+debugger on a running Perl program, although I'm not sure how it would be done."
+ssh and screen do this with named pipes in tmp. Maybe we can too.
-and get back the perlfaq entry on 'commify'.
+=head2 A decent benchmark
-This solution, however, requires documentation to contain the keywords
-the user is searching for. Even when the users know what they're
-looking for, often they can't spell it.
-
-=head2 Include a locate tool
-
-perldoc should be able to help people find the manpages on a
-particular high-level subject:
-
- perldoc -find web
-
-would tell them manpages, web pages, and books with material on web
-programming. Similarly C<perldoc -find databases>, C<perldoc -find
-references> and so on.
-
-We need something in the vicinity of:
-
- % perl -help random stuff
- No documentation for perl function `random stuff' found
- The following entry in perlfunc.pod matches /random/a:
- =item rand EXPR
-
- =item rand
-
- Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to C<0> and less
- than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is
- omitted, the value C<1> is used. Automatically calls C<srand()> unless
- C<srand()> has already been called. See also C<srand()>.
-
- (Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are too
- large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably compiled
- with the wrong number of RANDBITS.)
- The following pod pages seem to have /stuff/a:
- perlfunc.pod (7 hits)
- perlfaq7.pod (6 hits)
- perlmod.pod (4 hits)
- perlsyn.pod (3 hits)
- perlfaq8.pod (2 hits)
- perlipc.pod (2 hits)
- perl5004delta.pod (1 hit)
- perl5005delta.pod (1 hit)
- perlcall.pod (1 hit)
- perldelta.pod (1 hit)
- perlfaq3.pod (1 hit)
- perlfaq5.pod (1 hit)
- perlhist.pod (1 hit)
- perlref.pod (1 hit)
- perltoc.pod (1 hit)
- perltrap.pod (1 hit)
- Proceed to open perlfunc.pod? [y] n
- Do you want to speak perl interactively? [y] n
- Should I dial 911? [y] n
- Do you need psychiatric help? [y] y
- <PELIZA> Hi, what bothers you today?
- A Python programmer in the next cubby is driving me nuts!
- <PELIZA> Hmm, thats fixable. Just [rest censored]
-
-=head2 Separate function manpages by default
-
-Perl should install 'manpages' for every function/operator into the
-3pl or 3p manual section. By default. The splitman program in the
-Perl source distribution does the work of turning big perlfunc into
-little 3p pages.
-
-=head2 Users can't find the manpages
-
-Make C<perldoc> tell users what they need to add to their .login or
-.cshrc to set their MANPATH correctly.
-
-=head2 Install ALL Documentation
-
-Make the standard documentation kit include the VMS, OS/2, Win32,
-Threads, etc information. installperl and pod/Makefile should know
-enough to copy README.foo to perlfoo.pod before building everything,
-when appropriate.
-
-=head2 Outstanding issues to be documented
-
-Tom has a list of 5.005_5* features or changes that require
-documentation.
-
-Create one document that coherently explains the delta between the
-last camel release and the current release. perldelta was supposed
-to be that, but no longer. The things in perldelta never seemed to
-get placed in the right places in the real manpages, either. This
-needs work.
-
-=head2 Adapt www.linuxhq.com for Perl
-
-This should help glorify documentation and get more people involved in
-perl development.
-
-=head2 Replace man with a perl program
-
-Can we reimplement man in Perl? Tom has a start. I believe some of
-the Linux systems distribute a manalike. Alternatively, build on
-perldoc to remove the unfeatures like "is slow" and "has no apropos".
-
-=head2 Unicode tutorial
-
-We could use more work on helping people understand Perl's new
-Unicode support that Larry has created.
-
-=head1 Modules
-
-=head2 Update the POSIX extension to conform with the POSIX 1003.1 Edition 2
-
-The current state of the POSIX extension is as of Edition 1, 1991,
-whereas the Edition 2 came out in 1996. ISO/IEC 9945:1-1996(E),
-ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 Edition. ISBN 1-55937-573-6. The updates
-were legion: threads, IPC, and real time extensions.
-
-=head2 Module versions
-
-Automate the checking of versions in the standard distribution so
-it's easy for a pumpking to check whether CPAN has a newer version
-that we should be including?
-
-=head2 New modules
-
-Which modules should be added to the standard distribution? This ties
-in with the SDK discussed on the perl-sdk list at perl.org.
-
-=head2 Profiler
-
-Make the profiler (Devel::DProf) part of the standard release, and
-document it well.
-
-=head2 Tie Modules
-
-=over 4
-
-=item VecArray
-
-Implement array using vec(). Nathan Torkington has working code to
-do this.
-
-=item SubstrArray
-
-Implement array using substr()
-
-=item VirtualArray
-
-Implement array using a file
-
-=item ShiftSplice
-
-Defines shift et al in terms of splice method
-
-=back
-
-=head2 Procedural options
-
-Support procedural interfaces for the common cases of Perl's
-gratuitously OOO modules. Tom objects to "use IO::File" reading many
-thousands of lines of code.
-
-=head2 RPC
-
-Write a module for transparent, portable remote procedure calls. (Not
-core). This touches on the CORBA and ILU work.
-
-=head2 y2k localtime/gmtime
-
-Write a module, Y2k::Catch, which overloads localtime and gmtime's
-returned year value and catches "bad" attempts to use it.
-
-=head2 Export File::Find variables
-
-Make File::Find export C<$name> etc manually, at least if asked to.
-
-=head2 Ioctl
-
-Finish a proper Ioctl module.
-
-=head2 Debugger attach/detach
-
-Permit a user to debug an already-running program.
-
-=head2 Regular Expression debugger
-
-Create a visual profiler/debugger tool that stepped you through the
-execution of a regular expression point by point. Ilya has a module
-to color-code and display regular expression parses and executions.
-There's something at http://tkworld.org/ that might be a good start,
-it's a Tk/Tcl RE wizard, that builds regexen of many flavours.
-
-=head2 Alternative RE Syntax
-
-Make an alternative regular expression syntax that is accessed through
-a module. For instance,
-
- use RE;
- $re = start_of_line()
- ->literal("1998/10/08")
- ->optional( whitespace() )
- ->literal("[")
- ->remember( many( or( "-", digit() ) ) );
-
- if (/$re/) {
- print "time is $1\n";
- }
-
-Newbies to regular expressions typically only use a subset of the full
-language. Perhaps you wouldn't have to implement the full feature set.
-
-=head2 Bundled modules
-
-Nicholas Clark (nick@flirble.org) had a patch for storing modules in
-zipped format. This needs exploring and concluding.
-
-=head2 Expect
-
-Adopt IO::Tty, make it as portable as Don Libes' "expect" (can we link
-against expect code?), and perfect a Perl version of expect. IO::Tty
-and expect could then be distributed as part of the core distribution,
-replacing Comm.pl and other hacks.
-
-=head2 GUI::Native
-
-A simple-to-use interface to native graphical abilities would
-be welcomed. Oh, Perl's access Tk is nice enough, and reasonably
-portable, but it's not particularly as fast as one would like.
-Simple access to the mouse's cut buffer or mouse-presses shouldn't
-required loading a few terabytes of Tk code.
-
-=head2 Update semibroken auxiliary tools; h2ph, a2p, etc.
-
-Kurt Starsinic is working on h2ph. mjd has fixed bugs in a2p in the
-past. a2p apparently doesn't work on nawk and gawk extensions.
-Graham Barr has an Include module that does h2ph work at runtime.
-
-=head2 POD Converters
-
-Brad's PodParser code needs to become part of the core, and the Pod::*
-and pod2* programs rewritten to use this standard parser. Currently
-the converters take different options, some behave in different
-fashions, and some are more picky than others in terms of the POD
-files they accept.
-
-=head2 pod2html
-
-A short-term fix: pod2html generates absolute HTML links. Make it
-generate relative links.
-
-=head2 Podchecker
-
-Something like lint for Pod would be good. Something that catches
-common errors as well as gross ones. Brad Appleton is putting
-together something as part of his PodParser work.
-
-=head1 Tom's Wishes
-
-=head2 Webperl
-
-Design a webperl environment that's as tightly integrated and as
-easy-to-use as Perl's current command-line environment.
-
-=head2 Mobile agents
-
-More work on a safe and secure execution environment for mobile
-agents would be neat; the Safe.pm module is a start, but there's a
-still a lot to be done in that area. Adopt Penguin?
-
-=head2 POSIX on non-POSIX
-
-Standard programming constructs for non-POSIX systems would help a
-lot of programmers stuck on primitive, legacy systems. For example,
-Microsoft still hasn't made a usable POSIX interface on their clunky
-systems, which means that standard operations such as alarm() and
-fork(), both critical for sophisticated client-server programming,
-must both be kludged around.
-
-I'm unsure whether Tom means to emulate alarm( )and fork(), or merely
-to provide a document like perlport.pod to say which features are
-portable and which are not.
-
-=head2 Portable installations
-
-Figure out a portable semi-gelled installation, that is, one without
-full paths. Larry has said that he's thinking about this. Ilya
-pointed out that perllib_mangle() is good for this.
-
-=head1 Win32 Stuff
-
-=head2 Rename new headers to be consistent with the rest
-
-=head2 Sort out the spawnvp() mess
-
-=head2 Work out DLL versioning
-
-=head2 Style-check
-
-=head1 Would be nice to have
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<pack "(stuff)*">
-
-=item Contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack
-
-=item lexperl
-
-=item Bundled perl preprocessor
-
-=item Use posix calls internally where possible
-
-=item format BOTTOM
-
-=item -i rename file only when successfully changed
-
-=item All ARGV input should act like <>
-
-=item report HANDLE [formats].
-
-=item support in perlmain to rerun debugger
-
-=item lvalue functions
-
-Tuomas Lukka, on behalf of the PDL project, greatly desires this and
-Ilya has a patch for it (probably against an older version of Perl).
-Tuomas points out that what PDL really wants is lvalue I<methods>,
-not just subs.
-
-=back
-
-=head1 Possible pragmas
-
-=head2 'less'
-
-(use less memory, CPU)
-
-=head1 Optimizations
-
-=head2 constant function cache
-
-=head2 foreach(reverse...)
-
-=head2 Cache eval tree
-
-Unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?).
-
-=head2 rcatmaybe
-
-=head2 Shrink opcode tables
-
-Via multiple implementations selected in peep.
-
-=head2 Cache hash value
-
-Not a win, according to Guido.
-
-=head2 Optimize away @_ where possible
-
-=head2 Optimize sort by { $a <=> $b }
-
-Greg Bacon added several more sort optimizations. These have
-made it into 5.005_55, thanks to Hans Mulder.
-
-=head2 Rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization
-
-The regexp parser was rewritten for 5.005. Ilya's the regexp guru.
-
-=head1 Vague possibilities
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ref function in list context
-
-This seems impossible to do without substantially breaking code.
-
-=item make tr/// return histogram in list context?
-
-=item Loop control on do{} et al
-
-=item Explicit switch statements
-
-Nobody has yet managed to come up with a switch syntax that would
-allow for mixed hash, constant, regexp checks. Submit implementation
-with syntax, please.
-
-=item compile to real threaded code
-
-=item structured types
-
-=item Modifiable $1 et al
-
-The intent is for this to be a means of editing the matched portions of
-the target string.
-
-=back
-
-=head1 To Do Or Not To Do
-
-These are things that have been discussed in the past and roundly
-criticized for being of questionable value.
-
-=head2 Making my() work on "package" variables
-
-Being able to say my($Foo::Bar), something that sounds ludicrous and
-the 5.6 pumpking has mocked.
-
-=head2 "or" testing defined not truth
-
-We tell people that C<||> can be used to give a default value to a
-variable:
-
- $children = shift || 5; # default is 5 children
-
-which is almost (but not):
-
- $children = shift;
- $children = 5 unless $children;
-
-but if the first argument was given and is "0", then it will be
-considered false by C<||> and C<5> used instead. Really we want
-an C<||>-like operator that behaves like:
-
- $children = shift;
- $children = 5 unless defined $children;
-
-Namely, a C<||> that tests defined-ness rather than truth. One was
-discussed, and a patch submitted, but the objections were many. While
-there were objections, many still feel the need. At least it was
-decided that C<??> is the best name for the operator.
-
-=head2 "dynamic" lexicals
-
- my $x;
- sub foo {
- local $x;
- }
-
-Localizing, as Tim Bunce points out, is a separate concept from
-whether the variable is global or lexical. Chip Salzenberg had
-an implementation once, but Larry thought it had potential to
-confuse.
-
-=head2 "class"-based, rather than package-based "lexicals"
-
-This is like what the Alias module provides, but the variables would
-be lexicals reserved by perl at compile-time, which really are indices
-pointing into the pseudo-hash object visible inside every method so
-declared.
-
-=head1 Threading
-
-=head2 Modules
-
-Which of the standard modules are thread-safe? Which CPAN modules?
-How easy is it to fix those non-safe modules?
-
-=head2 Testing
-
-Threading is still experimental. Every reproducible bug identifies
-something else for us to fix. Find and submit more of these problems.
-
-=head2 $AUTOLOAD
-
-=head2 exit/die
-
-Consistent semantics for exit/die in threads.
-
-=head2 External threads
-
-Better support for externally created threads.
-
-=head2 Thread::Pool
-
-=head2 thread-safety
-
-Spot-check globals like statcache and global GVs for thread-safety.
-"B<Part done>", says Sarathy.
-
-=head2 Per-thread GVs
-
-According to Sarathy, this would make @_ be the same in threaded
-and non-threaded, as well as helping solve problems like filehandles
-(the same filehandle currently cannot be used in two threads).
-
-=head1 Compiler
-
-=head2 Optimization
-
-The compiler's back-end code-generators for creating bytecode or
-compilable C code could use optimization work.
-
-=head2 Byteperl
-
-Figure out how and where byteperl will be built for the various
-platforms.
-
-=head2 Precompiled modules
-
-Save byte-compiled modules on disk.
-
-=head2 Executables
-
-Auto-produce executable.
-
-=head2 Typed lexicals
-
-Typed lexicals should affect B::CC::load_pad.
-
-=head2 Win32
-
-Workarounds to help Win32 dynamic loading.
-
-=head2 END blocks
-
-END blocks need saving in compiled output, now that CHECK blocks
-are available.
-
-=head2 _AUTOLOAD
-
-_AUTOLOAD prodding.
-
-=head2 comppadlist
-
-Fix comppadlist (names in comppad_name can have fake SvCUR
-from where newASSIGNOP steals the field).
-
-=head2 Cached compilation
-
-Can we install modules as bytecode?
-
-=head1 Recently Finished Tasks
-
-=head2 Figure a way out of $^(capital letter)
-
-Figure out a clean way to extend $^(capital letter) beyond
-the 26 alphabets. (${^WORD} maybe?)
-
-Mark-Jason Dominus sent a patch which went into 5.005_56.
-
-=head2 Filenames
-
-Keep filenames in the distribution and in the standard module set
-be 8.3 friendly where feasible. Good luck changing the standard
-modules, though.
-
-=head2 Foreign lines
-
-Perl should be more generous in accepting foreign line terminations.
-Mostly B<done> in 5.005.
-
-=head2 Namespace cleanup
-
- symbol-space: "pl_" prefix for all global vars
- "Perl_" prefix for all functions
-
- CPP-space: stop malloc()/free() pollution unless asked
-
-=head2 ISA.pm
-
-Rename and alter ISA.pm. B<Done>. It is now base.pm.
-
-=head2 gettimeofday
-
-See Time::HiRes.
-
-=head2 autocroak?
-
-This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that that does
-not return success automatically die()s. If you're feeling brave, tie
-this in with the unified exceptions scheme.
-
-=cut
+perlbench seems impervious to any recent changes made to the perl core. It would
+be useful to have a reasonable general benchmarking suite that roughly
+represented what current perl programs do, and measurably reported whether
+tweaks to the core improve, degrade or don't really affect performance, to
+guide people attempting to optimise the guts of perl.
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff