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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perltodo - Perl TO-DO List |
4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
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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 |
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 |
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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 | |
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42 | There is also a web interface to the system at http://bugs.perl.org. |
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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 | |
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47 | We still desperately need a bugmaster, someone who will look at |
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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 |
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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 |
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 | |
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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 |
140 | =head1 Perl Internals |
141 | |
142 | =head2 magic_setisa |
143 | |
144 | C<magic_setisa> should be made to update %FIELDS [???] |
145 | |
e50bb9a1 |
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 |
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154 | I think we can accommodate that by extending bless() to stash |
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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. :) |
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158 | |
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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 | |
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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). |
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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. |
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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 |
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203 | compilation. Fix this. |
204 | |
205 | Noticed in Perl 5.6: Also local()ising tied variables leak. |
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206 | |
207 | =head2 Make XS easier to use |
208 | |
209 | There was interest in SWIG from porters, but nothing has happened |
210 | lately. |
211 | |
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212 | New development in 2001: the Inline module, when it gels, shows great |
213 | promise. |
214 | |
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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 |
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. |
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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 | |
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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 | |
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282 | =back |
283 | |
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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 |
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314 | |
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315 | =item rand |
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316 | |
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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()>. |
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321 | |
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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 | |
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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 | |
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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 | |
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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 | |
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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 | |
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409 | =head2 Profiler |
410 | |
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411 | Devel::DProf requires more documentation. |
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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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 | |
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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 |
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 |
571 | =item format BOTTOM |
572 | |
e50bb9a1 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
634 | =item compile to real threaded code |
635 | |
636 | =item structured types |
637 | |
e50bb9a1 |
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 |
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653 | the 5.6 pumpking has mocked. |
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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 |
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669 | an C<||>-like operator that behaves like: |
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670 | |
671 | $children = shift; |
672 | $children = 5 unless defined $children; |
673 | |
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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. |
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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 | |
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761 | =head2 END blocks |
762 | |
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763 | END blocks need saving in compiled output, now that CHECK blocks |
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764 | are available. |
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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 | |
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779 | =head2 Filenames |
780 | |
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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. |
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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 | |
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797 | =head2 ISA.pm |
798 | |
799 | Rename and alter ISA.pm. B<Done>. It is now base.pm. |
800 | |
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801 | =head2 autocroak? |
802 | |
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803 | This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that does |
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804 | not return success automatically die()s. If you're feeling brave, tie |
805 | this in with the unified exceptions scheme. |
806 | |
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807 | =cut |