-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