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1 | =head1 Perl TO-DO List |
2 | |
3 | This is a list of wishes for Perl. It is maintained by Nathan |
4 | Torkington for the Perl porters. Send updates to |
5 | I<perl5-porters@perl.org>. If you want to work on any of these |
6 | projects, be sure to check the perl5-porters archives for past ideas, |
7 | flames, and propaganda. This will save you time and also prevent you |
8 | from implementing something that Larry has already vetoed. One set |
9 | of archives may be found at: |
10 | |
11 | http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/ |
12 | |
13 | |
14 | =head1 Infrastructure |
15 | |
16 | =head2 Mailing list archives |
17 | |
18 | Chaim suggests contacting egroup and asking them to archive the other |
19 | perl.org mailing lists. Probably not advocacy, but definitely |
20 | perl6-porters, etc. |
21 | |
22 | =head2 Bug tracking system |
23 | |
24 | Richard Foley I<richard@perl.org> is writing one. We looked at |
25 | several, like gnats and the Debian system, but at the time we |
26 | investigated them, none met our needs. Since then, Jitterbug has |
27 | matured, and may be worth reinvestigation. |
28 | |
29 | The system we've developed will eventually be recipient of perlbug |
30 | mail. New bugs are entered into a mysql database, and sent on to |
31 | perl5-porters with the subject line rewritten to include a "ticket |
32 | number" (unique ID for the new bug). If the incoming message already |
33 | had a ticket number in the subject line, then the message is logged |
34 | against that bug. There is a separate email interface (not forwarding |
35 | to p5p) that permits porters to claim, categorize, and close tickets. |
36 | |
37 | The next desire is a web interface. It is hoped that code can be |
38 | reused between the mail and the web interfaces. |
39 | |
40 | The current delay in implementation is caused by perl.org lockups. |
41 | One suspect is the mail handling system, possibly going into loops. |
42 | |
43 | We're probably going to need a bugmaster, someone who will look at |
44 | every new "bug" and kill those that we already know about, those |
45 | that are not bugs at all, etc. |
46 | |
47 | =head2 Regression Tests |
48 | |
49 | The test suite for Perl serves two needs: ensuring features work, and |
50 | ensuring old bugs have not been reintroduced. Both need work. |
51 | |
52 | Brent LaVelle (lavelle@metronet.com) has stepped forward to work on |
53 | performance tests and improving the size of the test suite. |
54 | |
55 | =over 4 |
56 | |
57 | =item Coverage |
58 | |
59 | Do the tests that come with Perl exercise every line (or every block, |
60 | or ...) of the Perl interpreter, and if not then how can we make them |
61 | do so? |
62 | |
63 | =item Regression |
64 | |
65 | No bug fixes should be made without a corresponding testsuite addition. |
66 | This needs a dedicated enforcer, as the current pumpking is either too |
67 | lazy or too stupid or both and lets enforcement wander all over the |
68 | map. :-) |
69 | |
70 | =item __DIE__ |
71 | |
72 | Tests that fail need to be of a form that can be readily mailed |
73 | to perlbug and diagnosed with minimal back-and-forth's to determine |
74 | which test failed, due to what cause, etc. |
75 | |
76 | =item suidperl |
77 | |
78 | We need regression/sanity tests for suidperl |
79 | |
80 | =item The 25% slowdown from perl4 to perl5 |
81 | |
82 | This value may or may not be accurate, but it certainly is |
83 | eye-catching. For some things perl5 is faster than perl4, but often |
84 | the reliability and extensability have come at a cost of speed. The |
85 | benchmark suite that Gisle released earlier has been hailed as both a |
86 | fantastic solution and as a source of entirely meaningless figures. |
87 | Do we need to test "real applications"? Can you do so? Anyone have |
88 | machines to dedicate to the task? Identify the things that have grown |
89 | slower, and see if there's a way to make them faster. |
90 | |
91 | =back |
92 | |
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93 | =head1 Configure |
94 | |
95 | Andy Dougherty maintain(ed|s) a list of "todo" items for the configure |
96 | that comes with Perl. See Porting/pumpkin.pod in the latest |
97 | source release. |
98 | |
99 | =head2 Install HTML |
100 | |
101 | Have "make install" give you the option to install HTML as well. This |
102 | would be part of Configure. Andy Wardley (certified Perl studmuffin) |
103 | will look into the current problems of HTML installation--is |
104 | 'installhtml' preventing this from happening cleanly, or is pod2html |
105 | the problem? If the latter, Brad Appleton's pod work may fix the |
106 | problem for free. |
107 | |
108 | =head1 Perl Language |
109 | |
110 | =head2 our ($var) |
111 | |
112 | Declare global variables (lexically or otherwise). |
113 | |
114 | =head2 64-bit Perl |
115 | |
116 | Verify complete 64 bit support so that the value of sysseek, or C<-s>, or |
117 | stat(), or tell can fit into a perl number without losing precision. |
118 | Work with the perl-64bit mailing list on perl.org. |
119 | |
120 | =head2 Figure a way out of $^(capital letter) |
121 | |
122 | Figure out a clean way to extend $^(capital letter) beyond |
123 | the 26 alphabets. (${^WORD} maybe?) |
124 | |
125 | =head2 Prototypes |
126 | |
127 | =over 4 |
128 | |
129 | =item Named prototypes |
130 | |
131 | Add proper named prototypes that actually work usefully. |
132 | |
133 | =item Indirect objects |
134 | |
135 | Fix prototype bug that forgets indirect objects. |
136 | |
137 | =item Method calls |
138 | |
139 | Prototypes for method calls. |
140 | |
141 | =item Context |
142 | |
143 | Return context prototype declarations. |
144 | |
145 | =item Scoped subs |
146 | |
147 | lexically-scoped subs, e.g. my sub |
148 | |
149 | =back |
150 | |
151 | =head2 Built-in globbing |
152 | |
153 | Currently the C<E<lt>*.cE<gt>> syntax calls the c shell. This causes |
154 | problems on sites without csh, systems where fork() is expensive, and |
155 | setuid environments. Decide between Glob::BSD and File::KGlob, move |
156 | it into the core, and make Perl use it for globbing. Ben Holzman and |
157 | Tye McQueen have claimed the pumpkin for this. |
158 | |
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159 | =head1 Perl Internals |
160 | |
161 | =head2 magic_setisa |
162 | |
163 | C<magic_setisa> should be made to update %FIELDS [???] |
164 | |
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165 | =head2 Garbage Collection |
166 | |
167 | There was talk of a mark-and-sweep garbage collector at TPC2, but the |
168 | (to users) unpredictable nature of its behaviour put some off. |
169 | Sarathy, I believe, did the work. Here's what he has to say: |
170 | |
171 | Yeah, I hope to implement it someday too. The points that were |
172 | raised in TPC2 were all to do with calling DESTROY() methods, but |
173 | I think we can accomodate that by extending bless() to stash |
174 | extra information for objects so we track their lifetime accurately |
175 | for those that want their DESTROY() to be predictable (this will be |
176 | a speed hit, naturally, and will therefore be optional, naturally. :) |
177 | |
178 | [N.B. Don't even ask me about this now! When I have the time to |
179 | write a cogent summary, I'll post it.] |
180 | |
181 | =head2 Reliable signals |
182 | |
183 | Sarathy and Dan Sugalski are working on this. Chip posted a patch |
184 | earlier, but it was not accepted into 5.005. The issue is tricky, |
185 | because it has the potential to greatly slow down the core. |
186 | |
187 | There are at least three things to consider: |
188 | |
189 | =over 4 |
190 | |
191 | =item Alternate runops() for signal despatch |
192 | |
193 | Sarathy and Dan are discussed this on perl5-porters. |
194 | |
195 | =item Figure out how to die() in delayed sighandler |
196 | |
197 | =item Add tests for Thread::Signal |
198 | |
199 | =item Automatic tests against CPAN |
200 | |
201 | Is there some way to automatically build all/most of CPAN with |
202 | the new Perl and check that the modules there pass all the tests? |
203 | |
204 | =back |
205 | |
206 | =head2 Interpolated regex performance bugs |
207 | |
208 | while (<>) { |
209 | $found = 0; |
210 | foreach $pat (@patterns) { |
211 | $found++ if /$pat/o; |
212 | } |
213 | print if $found; |
214 | } |
215 | |
216 | The qr// syntax added in 5.005 has solved this problem, but |
217 | it needs more thorough documentation. |
218 | |
219 | =head2 Memory leaks from failed eval/regcomp |
220 | |
221 | The only known memory leaks in Perl are in failed code or regexp |
222 | compilation. Fix this. Hugo Van Der Sanden will attempt this but |
223 | won't have tuits until January 1999. |
224 | |
225 | =head2 Make XS easier to use |
226 | |
227 | There was interest in SWIG from porters, but nothing has happened |
228 | lately. |
229 | |
230 | =head2 Make embedded Perl easier to use |
231 | |
232 | This is probably difficult for the same reasons that "XS For Dummies" |
233 | will be difficult. |
234 | |
235 | =head2 Namespace cleanup |
236 | |
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237 | CPP-space: restrict CPP symbols exported from headers |
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238 | header-space: move into CORE/perl/ |
239 | API-space: begin list of things that constitute public api |
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240 | env-space: Configure should use PERL_CONFIG instead of CONFIG etc. |
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241 | |
242 | =head2 MULTIPLICITY |
243 | |
244 | Complete work on safe recursive interpreters C<Perl-E<gt>new()>. |
245 | Sarathy says that a reference implementation exists. |
246 | |
247 | =head2 MacPerl |
248 | |
249 | Chris Nandor and Matthias Neeracher are working on better integrating |
250 | MacPerl into the Perl distribution. |
251 | |
252 | =head1 Documentation |
253 | |
254 | There's a lot of documentation that comes with Perl. The quantity of |
255 | documentation makes it difficult for users to know which section of |
256 | which manpage to read in order to solve their problem. Tom |
257 | Christiansen has done much of the documentation work in the past. |
258 | |
259 | =head2 A clear division into tutorial and reference |
260 | |
261 | Some manpages (e.g., perltoot and perlreftut) clearly set out to |
262 | educate the reader about a subject. Other manpages (e.g., perlsub) |
263 | are references for which there is no tutorial, or are references with |
264 | a slight tutorial bent. If things are either tutorial or reference, |
265 | then the reader knows which manpage to read to learn about a subject, |
266 | and which manpage to read to learn all about an aspect of that |
267 | subject. Part of the solution to this is: |
268 | |
269 | =head2 Remove the artificial distinction between operators and functions |
270 | |
271 | History shows us that users, and often porters, aren't clear on the |
272 | operator-function distinction. The present split in reference |
273 | material between perlfunc and perlop hinders user navigation. Given |
274 | that perlfunc is by far the larger of the two, move operator reference |
275 | into perlfunc. |
276 | |
277 | =head2 More tutorials |
278 | |
279 | More documents of a tutorial nature could help. Here are some |
280 | candidates: |
281 | |
282 | =over 4 |
283 | |
284 | =item Regular expressions |
285 | |
286 | Robin Berjon (r.berjon@ltconsulting.net) has volunteered. |
287 | |
288 | =item I/O |
289 | |
290 | Mark-Jason Dominus (mjd@plover.com) has an outline for perliotut. |
291 | |
292 | =item pack/unpack |
293 | |
294 | This is badly needed. There has been some discussion on the |
295 | subject on perl5-porters. |
296 | |
297 | =item Debugging |
298 | |
299 | Ronald Kimball (rjk@linguist.dartmouth.edu) has volunteered. |
300 | |
301 | =head2 Include a search tool |
302 | |
303 | perldoc should be able to 'grep' fulltext indices of installed POD |
304 | files. This would let people say: |
305 | |
306 | perldoc -find printing numbers with commas |
307 | |
308 | and get back the perlfaq entry on 'commify'. |
309 | |
310 | This solution, however, requires documentation to contain the keywords |
311 | the user is searching for. Even when the users know what they're |
312 | looking for, often they can't spell it. |
313 | |
314 | =head2 Include a locate tool |
315 | |
316 | perldoc should be able to help people find the manpages on a |
317 | particular high-level subject: |
318 | |
319 | perldoc -find web |
320 | |
321 | would tell them manpages, web pages, and books with material on web |
322 | programming. Similarly C<perldoc -find databases>, C<perldoc -find |
323 | references> and so on. |
324 | |
325 | We need something in the vicinity of: |
326 | |
327 | % perl -help random stuff |
328 | No documentation for perl function `random stuff' found |
329 | The following entry in perlfunc.pod matches /random/a: |
330 | =item rand EXPR |
331 | |
332 | =item rand |
333 | |
334 | Returns a random fractional number greater than or equal to C<0> and less |
335 | than the value of EXPR. (EXPR should be positive.) If EXPR is |
336 | omitted, the value C<1> is used. Automatically calls C<srand()> unless |
337 | C<srand()> has already been called. See also C<srand()>. |
338 | |
339 | (Note: If your rand function consistently returns numbers that are too |
340 | large or too small, then your version of Perl was probably compiled |
341 | with the wrong number of RANDBITS.) |
342 | The following pod pages seem to have /stuff/a: |
343 | perlfunc.pod (7 hits) |
344 | perlfaq7.pod (6 hits) |
345 | perlmod.pod (4 hits) |
346 | perlsyn.pod (3 hits) |
347 | perlfaq8.pod (2 hits) |
348 | perlipc.pod (2 hits) |
349 | perl5004delta.pod (1 hit) |
350 | perl5005delta.pod (1 hit) |
351 | perlcall.pod (1 hit) |
352 | perldelta.pod (1 hit) |
353 | perlfaq3.pod (1 hit) |
354 | perlfaq5.pod (1 hit) |
355 | perlhist.pod (1 hit) |
356 | perlref.pod (1 hit) |
357 | perltoc.pod (1 hit) |
358 | perltrap.pod (1 hit) |
359 | Proceed to open perlfunc.pod? [y] n |
360 | Do you want to speak perl interactively? [y] n |
361 | Should I dial 911? [y] n |
362 | Do you need psychiatric help? [y] y |
363 | <PELIZA> Hi, what bothers you today? |
364 | A Python programmer in the next cubby is driving me nuts! |
365 | <PELIZA> Hmm, thats fixable. Just [rest censored] |
366 | |
367 | =head2 Separate function manpages by default |
368 | |
369 | Perl should install 'manpages' for every function/operator into the |
370 | 3pl or 3p manual section. By default. The splitman program in the |
371 | Perl source distribution does the work of turning big perlfunc into |
372 | little 3p pages. |
373 | |
374 | =head2 Users can't find the manpages |
375 | |
376 | Make C<perldoc> tell users what they need to add to their .login or |
377 | .cshrc to set their MANPATH correctly. |
378 | |
379 | =head2 Install ALL Documentation |
380 | |
381 | Make the standard documentation kit include the VMS, OS/2, Win32, |
382 | Threads, etc information. |
383 | |
384 | =head2 Outstanding issues to be documented |
385 | |
386 | Tom has a list of 5.005_5* features or changes that require |
387 | documentation. |
388 | |
389 | Create one document that coherently explains the delta between the |
390 | last camel release and the current release. perldelta was supposed |
391 | to be that, but no longer. The things in perldelta never seemed to |
392 | get placed in the right places in the real manpages, either. This |
393 | needs work. |
394 | |
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395 | =head2 Adapt www.linuxhq.com for Perl |
396 | |
397 | This should help glorify documentation and get more people involved in |
398 | perl development. |
399 | |
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400 | =head2 Replace man with a perl program |
401 | |
402 | Can we reimplement man in Perl? Tom has a start. I believe some of |
403 | the Linux systems distribute a manalike. Alternatively, build on |
404 | perldoc to remove the unfeatures like "is slow" and "has no apropos". |
405 | |
406 | =head2 Unicode tutorial |
407 | |
408 | We could use more work on helping people understand Perl's new |
409 | Unicode support that Larry has created. |
410 | |
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411 | =head1 Modules |
412 | |
413 | =head2 Update the POSIX extension to conform with the POSIX 1003.1 Edition 2 |
414 | |
415 | The current state of the POSIX extension is as of Edition 1, 1991, |
416 | whereas the Edition 2 came out in 1996. ISO/IEC 9945:1-1996(E), |
417 | ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 Edition. ISBN 1-55937-573-6. The updates |
418 | were legion: threads, IPC, and real time extensions. |
419 | |
420 | =head2 Module versions |
421 | |
422 | Automate the checking of versions in the standard distribution so |
423 | it's easy for a pumpking to check whether CPAN has a newer version |
424 | that we should be including? |
425 | |
426 | =head2 New modules |
427 | |
428 | Which modules should be added to the standard distribution? This ties |
429 | in with the SDK discussed on the perl-sdk list at perl.org. |
430 | |
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431 | =head2 Profiler |
432 | |
433 | Make the profiler (Devel::DProf) part of the standard release, and |
434 | document it well. |
435 | |
436 | =head2 Tie Modules |
437 | |
438 | =over 4 |
439 | |
440 | =item VecArray |
441 | |
442 | Implement array using vec(). Nathan Torkington has working code to |
443 | do this. |
444 | |
445 | =item SubstrArray |
446 | |
447 | Implement array using substr() |
448 | |
449 | =item VirtualArray |
450 | |
451 | Implement array using a file |
452 | |
453 | =item ShiftSplice |
454 | |
455 | Defines shift et al in terms of splice method |
456 | |
457 | =back |
458 | |
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459 | =head2 Procedural options |
460 | |
461 | Support procedural interfaces for the common cases of Perl's |
462 | gratuitously OOO modules. Tom objects to "use IO::File" reading many |
463 | thousands of lines of code. |
464 | |
465 | =head2 RPC |
466 | |
467 | Write a module for transparent, portable remote procedure calls. (Not |
468 | core). This touches on the CORBA and ILU work. |
469 | |
470 | =head2 y2k localtime/gmtime |
471 | |
472 | Write a module, Y2k::Catch, which overloads localtime and gmtime's |
473 | returned year value and catches "bad" attempts to use it. |
474 | |
475 | =head2 Export File::Find variables |
476 | |
477 | Make File::Find export C<$name> etc manually, at least if asked to. |
478 | |
479 | =head2 Ioctl |
480 | |
481 | Finish a proper Ioctl module. |
482 | |
483 | =head2 Debugger attach/detach |
484 | |
485 | Permit a user to debug an already-running program. |
486 | |
487 | =head2 Regular Expression debugger |
488 | |
489 | Create a visual profiler/debugger tool that stepped you through the |
490 | execution of a regular expression point by point. Ilya has a module |
491 | to color-code and display regular expression parses and executions. |
492 | There's something at http://tkworld.org/ that might be a good start, |
493 | it's a Tk/Tcl RE wizard, that builds regexen of many flavours. |
494 | |
495 | =head2 Alternative RE Syntax |
496 | |
497 | Make an alternative regular expression syntax that is accessed through |
498 | a module. For instance, |
499 | |
500 | use RE; |
501 | $re = start_of_line() |
502 | ->literal("1998/10/08") |
503 | ->optional( whitespace() ) |
504 | ->literal("[") |
505 | ->remember( many( or( "-", digit() ) ) ); |
506 | |
507 | if (/$re/) { |
508 | print "time is $1\n"; |
509 | } |
510 | |
511 | Newbies to regular expressions typically only use a subset of the full |
512 | language. Perhaps you wouldn't have to implement the full feature set. |
513 | |
514 | =head2 Bundled modules |
515 | |
516 | Nicholas Clark (nick@flirble.org) had a patch for storing modules in |
517 | zipped format. This needs exploring and concluding. |
518 | |
519 | =head2 Expect |
520 | |
521 | Adopt IO::Tty, make it as portable as Don Libes' "expect" (can we link |
522 | against expect code?), and perfect a Perl version of expect. IO::Tty |
523 | and expect could then be distributed as part of the core distribution, |
524 | replacing Comm.pl and other hacks. |
525 | |
526 | =head2 GUI::Native |
527 | |
528 | A simple-to-use interface to native graphical abilities would |
529 | be welcomed. Oh, Perl's access Tk is nice enough, and reasonably |
530 | portable, but it's not particularly as fast as one would like. |
531 | Simple access to the mouse's cut buffer or mouse-presses shouldn't |
532 | required loading a few terabytes of Tk code. |
533 | |
534 | =head2 Update semibroken auxiliary tools; h2ph, a2p, etc. |
535 | |
536 | Kurt Starsinic is working on h2ph. mjd has fixed bugs in a2p in the |
537 | past. a2p apparently doesn't work on nawk and gawk extensions. |
538 | Graham Barr has an Include module that does h2ph work at runtime. |
539 | |
540 | =head2 POD Converters |
541 | |
542 | Brad's PodParser code needs to become part of the core, and the Pod::* |
543 | and pod2* programs rewritten to use this standard parser. Currently |
544 | the converters take different options, some behave in different |
545 | fashions, and some are more picky than others in terms of the POD |
546 | files they accept. |
547 | |
548 | =head2 pod2html |
549 | |
550 | A short-term fix: pod2html generates absolute HTML links. Make it |
551 | generate relative links. |
552 | |
553 | =head2 Podchecker |
554 | |
555 | Something like lint for Pod would be good. Something that catches |
556 | common errors as well as gross ones. Brad Appleton is putting |
557 | together something as part of his PodParser work. |
558 | |
559 | =head1 Tom's Wishes |
560 | |
561 | =head2 Webperl |
562 | |
563 | Design a webperl environment that's as tightly integrated and as |
564 | easy-to-use as Perl's current command-line environment. |
565 | |
566 | =head2 Mobile agents |
567 | |
568 | More work on a safe and secure execution environment for mobile |
569 | agents would be neat; the Safe.pm module is a start, but there's a |
570 | still a lot to be done in that area. Adopt Penguin? |
571 | |
572 | =head2 POSIX on non-POSIX |
573 | |
574 | Standard programming constructs for non-POSIX systems would help a |
575 | lot of programmers stuck on primitive, legacy systems. For example, |
576 | Microsoft still hasn't made a usable POSIX interface on their clunky |
577 | systems, which means that standard operations such as alarm() and |
578 | fork(), both critical for sophisticated client-server programming, |
579 | must both be kludged around. |
580 | |
581 | I'm unsure whether Tom means to emulate alarm( )and fork(), or merely |
582 | to provide a document like perlport.pod to say which features are |
583 | portable and which are not. |
584 | |
585 | =head2 Portable installations |
586 | |
587 | Figure out a portable semi-gelled installation, that is, one without |
588 | full paths. Larry has said that he's thinking about this. Ilya |
589 | pointed out that perllib_mangle() is good for this. |
590 | |
591 | =head1 Win32 Stuff |
592 | |
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593 | =head2 Get PERL_OBJECT building under gcc |
594 | |
595 | B<Part done>, according to Sarathy. It builds under egcs on win32, |
596 | but doesn't run for occult reasons. If anyone knows the right |
597 | breed of chicken to sacrifice, please speak up. |
598 | |
599 | =head2 Rename new headers to be consistent with the rest |
600 | |
601 | =head2 Sort out the spawnvp() mess |
602 | |
603 | =head2 Work out DLL versioning |
604 | |
605 | =head2 Get PERL_OBJECT building on non-win32 |
606 | |
607 | =head2 Style-check |
608 | |
609 | =head1 Would be nice to have |
610 | |
611 | =over 4 |
612 | |
613 | =item C<pack "(stuff)*"> |
614 | |
615 | =item Contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack |
616 | |
617 | =item lexperl |
618 | |
619 | =item Bundled perl preprocessor |
620 | |
621 | =item Use posix calls internally where possible |
622 | |
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623 | =item format BOTTOM |
624 | |
e50bb9a1 |
625 | =item -i rename file only when successfully changed |
626 | |
627 | =item All ARGV input should act like <> |
628 | |
629 | =item report HANDLE [formats]. |
630 | |
631 | =item support in perlmain to rerun debugger |
632 | |
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633 | =item lvalue functions |
634 | |
635 | Tuomas Lukka, on behalf of the PDL project, greatly desires this and |
636 | Ilya has a patch for it (probably against an older version of Perl). |
637 | Tuomas points out that what PDL really wants is lvalue I<methods>, |
638 | not just subs. |
639 | |
640 | =back |
641 | |
642 | =head1 Possible pragmas |
643 | |
644 | =head2 'less' |
645 | |
646 | (use less memory, CPU) |
647 | |
648 | =head1 Optimizations |
649 | |
650 | =head2 constant function cache |
651 | |
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652 | =head2 foreach(reverse...) |
653 | |
654 | =head2 Cache eval tree |
655 | |
656 | Unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?). |
657 | |
658 | =head2 rcatmaybe |
659 | |
660 | =head2 Shrink opcode tables |
661 | |
662 | Via multiple implementations selected in peep. |
663 | |
664 | =head2 Cache hash value |
665 | |
666 | Not a win, according to Guido. |
667 | |
668 | =head2 Optimize away @_ where possible |
669 | |
670 | =head2 Optimize sort by { $a <=> $b } |
671 | |
672 | Greg Bacon added several more sort optimizations. These have |
673 | made it into 5.005_55, thanks to Hans Mulder. |
674 | |
675 | =head2 Rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization |
676 | |
677 | The regexp parser was rewritten for 5.005. Ilya's the regexp guru. |
678 | |
679 | =head1 Vague possibilities |
680 | |
681 | =over 4 |
682 | |
683 | =item ref function in list context |
684 | |
685 | This seems impossible to do without substantially breaking code. |
686 | |
687 | =item make tr/// return histogram in list context? |
688 | |
689 | =item Loop control on do{} et al |
690 | |
691 | =item Explicit switch statements |
692 | |
693 | Nobody has yet managed to come up with a switch syntax that would |
694 | allow for mixed hash, constant, regexp checks. Submit implementation |
695 | with syntax, please. |
696 | |
697 | =item compile to real threaded code |
698 | |
699 | =item structured types |
700 | |
e50bb9a1 |
701 | =item Modifiable $1 et al |
702 | |
703 | The intent is for this to be a means of editing the matched portions of |
704 | the target string. |
705 | |
706 | =back |
707 | |
708 | =head1 To Do Or Not To Do |
709 | |
710 | These are things that have been discussed in the past and roundly |
711 | criticized for being of questionable value. |
712 | |
713 | =head2 Making my() work on "package" variables |
714 | |
715 | Being able to say my($Foo::Bar), something that sounds ludicrous and |
716 | the 5.006 pumpking has mocked. |
717 | |
718 | =head2 "or" testing defined not truth |
719 | |
720 | We tell people that C<||> can be used to give a default value to a |
721 | variable: |
722 | |
723 | $children = shift || 5; # default is 5 children |
724 | |
725 | which is almost (but not): |
726 | |
727 | $children = shift; |
728 | $children = 5 unless $children; |
729 | |
730 | but if the first argument was given and is "0", then it will be |
731 | considered false by C<||> and C<5> used instead. Really we want |
04c70446 |
732 | an C<||>-like operator that behaves like: |
e50bb9a1 |
733 | |
734 | $children = shift; |
735 | $children = 5 unless defined $children; |
736 | |
04c70446 |
737 | Namely, a C<||> that tests defined-ness rather than truth. One was |
738 | discussed, and a patch submitted, but the objections were many. While |
739 | there were objections, many still feel the need. At least it was |
740 | decided that C<??> is the best name for the operator. |
e50bb9a1 |
741 | |
742 | =head2 "dynamic" lexicals |
743 | |
744 | my $x; |
745 | sub foo { |
746 | local $x; |
747 | } |
748 | |
749 | Localizing, as Tim Bunce points out, is a separate concept from |
750 | whether the variable is global or lexical. Chip Salzenberg had |
751 | an implementation once, but Larry thought it had potential to |
752 | confuse. |
753 | |
754 | =head2 "class"-based, rather than package-based "lexicals" |
755 | |
756 | This is like what the Alias module provides, but the variables would |
757 | be lexicals reserved by perl at compile-time, which really are indices |
758 | pointing into the pseudo-hash object visible inside every method so |
759 | declared. |
760 | |
761 | =head1 Threading |
762 | |
763 | =head2 Modules |
764 | |
765 | Which of the standard modules are thread-safe? Which CPAN modules? |
766 | How easy is it to fix those non-safe modules? |
767 | |
768 | =head2 Testing |
769 | |
770 | Threading is still experimental. Every reproducible bug identifies |
771 | something else for us to fix. Find and submit more of these problems. |
772 | |
773 | =head2 $AUTOLOAD |
774 | |
775 | =head2 exit/die |
776 | |
777 | Consistent semantics for exit/die in threads. |
778 | |
779 | =head2 External threads |
780 | |
781 | Better support for externally created threads. |
782 | |
783 | =head2 Thread::Pool |
784 | |
785 | =head2 thread-safety |
786 | |
787 | Spot-check globals like statcache and global GVs for thread-safety. |
788 | "B<Part done>", says Sarathy. |
789 | |
790 | =head2 Per-thread GVs |
791 | |
792 | According to Sarathy, this would make @_ be the same in threaded |
793 | and non-threaded, as well as helping solve problems like filehandles |
794 | (the same filehandle currently cannot be used in two threads). |
795 | |
796 | =head1 Compiler |
797 | |
798 | =head2 Optimization |
799 | |
800 | The compiler's back-end code-generators for creating bytecode or |
801 | compilable C code could use optimization work. |
802 | |
803 | =head2 Byteperl |
804 | |
805 | Figure out how and where byteperl will be built for the various |
806 | platforms. |
807 | |
808 | =head2 Precompiled modules |
809 | |
810 | Save byte-compiled modules on disk. |
811 | |
812 | =head2 Executables |
813 | |
814 | Auto-produce executable. |
815 | |
816 | =head2 Typed lexicals |
817 | |
818 | Typed lexicals should affect B::CC::load_pad. |
819 | |
820 | =head2 Win32 |
821 | |
822 | Workarounds to help Win32 dynamic loading. |
823 | |
e50bb9a1 |
824 | =head2 END blocks |
825 | |
826 | END blocks need saving in compiled output. |
827 | |
828 | =head2 _AUTOLOAD |
829 | |
830 | _AUTOLOAD prodding. |
831 | |
832 | =head2 comppadlist |
833 | |
834 | Fix comppadlist (names in comppad_name can have fake SvCUR |
835 | from where newASSIGNOP steals the field). |
836 | |
837 | =head2 Cached compilation |
838 | |
839 | Can we install modules as bytecode? |
840 | |
04c70446 |
841 | =head1 Recently Finished Tasks |
842 | |
843 | =head2 Filenames |
844 | |
845 | Make filenames in the distribution and in the standard module set |
846 | be 8.3 friendly where feasible. Good luck changing the standard |
847 | modules, though. B<Done>. |
848 | |
849 | =head2 Proper tied array support |
850 | |
851 | This was B<done> in 5.005 by Nick Ing-Simmons. |
852 | |
853 | =head2 Foreign lines |
854 | |
855 | Perl should be more generous in accepting foreign line terminations. |
856 | Mostly B<done> in 5.005. |
857 | |
858 | =head2 Namespace cleanup |
859 | |
860 | symbol-space: "pl_" prefix for all global vars |
861 | "Perl_" prefix for all functions |
862 | |
863 | CPP-space: stop malloc()/free() pollution unless asked |
864 | |
865 | =head2 Explain tool |
866 | |
867 | Given a piece of Perl code, say what it does. B::Deparse is doing |
868 | this. B<Done>. |
869 | |
870 | =head2 ISA.pm |
871 | |
872 | Rename and alter ISA.pm. B<Done>. It is now base.pm. |
873 | |
874 | =head2 Automate maintenance of most PERL_OBJECT code |
875 | |
876 | B<Done>, says Sarathy. |
877 | |
878 | =head2 -iprefix. |
879 | |
880 | Added in 5.004_70. B<Done> |
881 | |
882 | =head2 gettimeofday |
883 | |
884 | See Time::HiRes. |
885 | |
886 | =head2 reference to compiled regexp |
887 | |
888 | B<done> This is the qr// support in 5.005. |
889 | |
890 | =head2 eval qw() at compile time |
891 | |
892 | qw() is presently compiled as a call to split. This means the split |
893 | happens at runtime. Change this so qw() is compiled as a real list |
894 | assignment. This also avoids surprises like: |
895 | |
896 | $a = () = qw(What will $a hold?); |
897 | |
898 | B<Done>. Tom Hughes submitted a patch that went into 5.005_55. |
899 | |
900 | =head2 autocroak? |
901 | |
902 | B<Done>. This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that that does |
903 | not return success automatically die()s. If you're feeling brave, tie |
904 | this in with the unified exceptions scheme. |
905 | |
906 | =head2 Status variable |
907 | |
908 | $^C to track compiler/checker status. B<Done> in 5.005_54. |
909 | |
e50bb9a1 |
910 | =cut |