=head1 Tasks that only need Perl knowledge
-=head2 Remove macperl references from tests
+=head2 Migrate t/ from custom TAP generation
-MacPerl is gone. The tests don't need to be there.
+Many tests below F<t/> still generate TAP by "hand", rather than using library
+functions. As explained in L<perlhack/Writing a test>, tests in F<t/> are
+written in a particular way to test that more complex constructions actually
+work before using them routinely. Hence they don't use C<Test::More>, but
+instead there is an intentionally simpler library, F<t/test.pl>. However,
+quite a few tests in F<t/> have not been refactored to use it. Refactoring
+any of these tests, one at a time, is a useful thing TODO.
+
+=head2 Test that regen.pl was run
+
+There are various generated files shipped with the perl distribution, for
+things like header files generate from data. The generation scripts are
+written in perl, and all can be run by F<regen.pl>. However, because they're
+written in perl, we can't run them before we've built perl. We can't run them
+as part of the F<Makefile>, because changing files underneath F<make> confuses
+it completely, and we don't want to run them automatically anyway, as they
+change files shipped by the distribution, something we seek not do to.
+
+If someone changes the data, but forgets to re-run F<regen.pl> then the
+generated files are out of sync. It would be good to have a test in
+F<t/porting> that checks that the generated files are in sync, and fails
+otherwise, to alert someone before they make a poor commit. I suspect that this
+would require adapting the scripts run from F<regen.pl> to have dry-run
+options, and invoking them with these, or by refactoring them into a library
+that does the generation, which can be called by the scripts, and by the test.
+
+=head2 Automate perldelta generation
+
+The perldelta file accompanying each release summaries the major changes.
+It's mostly manually generated currently, but some of that could be
+automated with a bit of perl, specifically the generation of
+
+=over
+
+=item Modules and Pragmata
+
+=item New Documentation
+
+=item New Tests
+
+=back
+
+See F<Porting/how_to_write_a_perldelta.pod> for details.
=head2 Remove duplication of test setup.
to work your way though the code from bottom to top, or if necessary adding
extra C<{ ... }> blocks, and turning on strict within them.
-=head2 Parallel testing
-
-(This probably impacts much more than the core: also the Test::Harness
-and TAP::* modules on CPAN.)
-
-All of the tests in F<t/> can now be run in parallel, if C<$ENV{TEST_JOBS}>
-is set. However, tests within each directory in F<ext> and F<lib> are still
-run in series, with directories run in parallel. This is an adequate
-heuristic, but it might be possible to relax it further, and get more
-throughput. Specifically, it would be good to audit all of F<lib/*.t>, and
-make them use C<File::Temp>.
-
=head2 Make Schwern poorer
We should have tests for everything. When all the core's modules are tested,
To make a minimal perl distribution, it's useful to look at
F<t/lib/commonsense.t>.
-=head2 Bundle dual life modules in ext/
+=head2 Move dual-life pod/*.PL into ext
-For maintenance (and branch merging) reasons, it would be useful to move
-some architecture-independent dual-life modules from lib/ to ext/, if this
-has no negative impact on the build of perl itself.
+Nearly all the dual-life modules have been moved to F<ext>. However, we
+still need to move F<pod/*.PL> into their respective directories
+in F<ext/>. They're referenced by (at least) C<plextract> in F<Makefile.SH>
+and C<utils> in F<win32/Makefile> and F<win32/makefile.ml>, and listed
+explicitly in F<win32/pod.mak>, F<vms/descrip_mms.template> and F<utils.lst>
=head2 POSIX memory footprint
Currently F<Configure> automatically adds C<-DDEBUGGING> to the C compiler
flags if it spots C<-g> in the optimiser flags. The pre-processor directive
-C<DEBUGGING> enables F<perl>'s command line <-D> options, but in the process
+C<DEBUGGING> enables F<perl>'s command line C<-D> options, but in the process
makes F<perl> slower. It would be good to disentangle this logic, so that
C-level debugging with C<-g> and Perl level debugging with C<-D> can easily
be enabled independently.
the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to
C.
+=head2 Write an XS cookbook
+
+Create pod/perlxscookbook.pod with short, task-focused 'recipes' in XS that
+demonstrate common tasks and good practices. (Some of these might be
+extracted from perlguts.) The target audience should be XS novices, who need
+more examples than perlguts but something less overwhelming than perlapi.
+Recipes should provide "one pretty good way to do it" instead of TIMTOWTDI.
+
+Rather than focusing on interfacing Perl to C libraries, such a cookbook
+should probably focus on how to optimize Perl routines by re-writing them
+in XS. This will likely be more motivating to those who mostly work in
+Perl but are looking to take the next step into XS.
+
+Deconstructing and explaining some simpler XS modules could be one way to
+bootstrap a cookbook. (List::Util? Class::XSAccessor? Tree::Ternary_XS?)
+Another option could be deconstructing the implementation of some simpler
+functions in op.c.
+
=head2 Remove the use of SVs as temporaries in dump.c
F<dump.c> contains debugging routines to dump out the contains of perl data
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff