X-Git-Url: http://git.shadowcat.co.uk/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?a=blobdiff_plain;f=pod%2Fperltodo.pod;h=a16cf0d604adff14905f09dfc0f43ed39d2aacd2;hb=e706c0cd31a70bd2c97d4510f261613278a7e1f5;hp=a8a6d797cc656c8d6a8f5f1ea164dd8c8c487de4;hpb=78ef48ad54f3f3d026ec9b5e1065ffce87f99844;p=p5sagit%2Fp5-mst-13.2.git

diff --git a/pod/perltodo.pod b/pod/perltodo.pod
index a8a6d79..a16cf0d 100644
--- a/pod/perltodo.pod
+++ b/pod/perltodo.pod
@@ -4,10 +4,14 @@ perltodo - Perl TO-DO List
 
 =head1 DESCRIPTION
 
-This is a list of wishes for Perl. The tasks we think are smaller or easier
-are listed first. Anyone is welcome to work on any of these, but it's a good
-idea to first contact I<perl5-porters@perl.org> to avoid duplication of
-effort. By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you prefer.
+This is a list of wishes for Perl. The most up to date version of this file
+is at http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/pod/perltodo.pod
+
+The tasks we think are smaller or easier are listed first. Anyone is welcome
+to work on any of these, but it's a good idea to first contact
+I<perl5-porters@perl.org> to avoid duplication of effort, and to learn from
+any previous attempts. By all means contact a pumpking privately first if you
+prefer.
 
 Whilst patches to make the list shorter are most welcome, ideas to add to
 the list are also encouraged. Check the perl5-porters archives for past
@@ -20,47 +24,69 @@ not, but if your patch is incorporated, then we'll add your name to the
 F<AUTHORS> file, which ships in the official distribution. How many other
 programming languages offer you 1 line of immortality?
 
-=head1 The roadmap to 5.10
+=head1 Tasks that only need Perl knowledge
 
-The roadmap to 5.10 envisages feature based releases, as various items in this
-TODO are completed.
+=head2 Improve Porting/cmpVERSION.pl to work from git tags
 
-=head2 Needed for a 5.9.4 release
+See F<Porting/release_managers_guide.pod> for a bit more detail.
 
-=over
+=head2 Migrate t/ from custom TAP generation
 
-=item *
+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.
 
-Review assertions. Review syntax to combine assertions. Assertions could take
-advantage of the lexical pragmas work. L</What hooks would assertions need?>
+The subdirectories F<base>, F<cmd> and F<comp>, that contain the most
+basic tests, should be excluded from this task.
 
-=back
+=head2 Test that regen.pl was run
 
-=head2 Needed for a 5.9.5 release
+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.
 
-=over
+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.
 
-=item *
-Implement L</_ prototype character>
+=head2 Automate perldelta generation
 
-=item *
-Implement L</state variables>
+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
 
-=back
+=over
 
-=head2 Needed for a 5.9.6 release
+=item Modules and Pragmata
 
-Stabilisation. If all goes well, this will be the equivalent of a 5.10-beta.
+=item New Documentation
 
-=head1 Tasks that only need Perl knowledge
+=item New Tests
+
+=back
+
+See F<Porting/how_to_write_a_perldelta.pod> for details.
 
-=head2 common test code for timed bail out
+=head2 Remove duplication of test setup.
 
-Write portable self destruct code for tests to stop them burning CPU in
-infinite loops. This needs to avoid using alarm, as some of the tests are
-testing alarm/sleep or timers.
+Schwern notes, that there's duplication of code - lots and lots of tests have
+some variation on the big block of C<$Is_Foo> checks.  We can safely put this
+into a file, change it to build an C<%Is> hash and require it.  Maybe just put
+it into F<test.pl>. Throw in the handy tainting subroutines.
 
-=head2 POD -> HTML conversion in the core still sucks
+=head2 POD -E<gt> HTML conversion in the core still sucks
 
 Which is crazy given just how simple POD purports to be, and how simple HTML
 can be. It's not actually I<as> simple as it sounds, particularly with the
@@ -72,47 +98,29 @@ is needed to improve the cross-linking.
 The addition of C<Pod::Simple> and its related modules may make this task
 easier to complete.
 
-=head2 Parallel testing
-
-The core regression test suite is getting ever more comprehensive, which has
-the side effect that it takes longer to run. This isn't so good. Investigate
-whether it would be feasible to give the harness script the B<option> of
-running sets of tests in parallel. This would be useful for tests in
-F<t/op/*.t> and F<t/uni/*.t> and maybe some sets of tests in F<lib/>.
-
-Questions to answer
-
-=over 4
-
-=item 1
-
-How does screen layout work when you're running more than one test?
+=head2 Make ExtUtils::ParseXS use strict;
 
-=item 2
+F<lib/ExtUtils/ParseXS.pm> contains this line
 
-How does the caller of test specify how many tests to run in parallel?
+    # use strict;  # One of these days...
 
-=item 3
+Simply uncomment it, and fix all the resulting issues :-)
 
-How do setup/teardown tests identify themselves?
-
-=back
-
-Pugs already does parallel testing - can their approach be re-used?
+The more practical approach, to break the task down into manageable chunks, is
+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 Make Schwern poorer
 
-We should have for everything. When all the core's modules are tested,
+We should have tests for everything. When all the core's modules are tested,
 Schwern has promised to donate to $500 to TPF. We may need volunteers to
 hold him upside down and shake vigorously in order to actually extract the
 cash.
 
-See F<t/lib/1_compile.t> for the 3 remaining modules that need tests.
-
 =head2 Improve the coverage of the core tests
 
-Use Devel::Cover to ascertain the core's test coverage, then add tests that
-are currently missing.
+Use Devel::Cover to ascertain the core modules' test coverage, then add
+tests that are currently missing.
 
 =head2 test B
 
@@ -139,10 +147,16 @@ distribution needs to be dual lifed. Anything else can be too. Figure out what
 changes would be needed to package that module and its tests up for CPAN, and
 do so. Test it with older perl releases, and fix the problems you find.
 
-=head2 Improving C<threads::shared>
+To make a minimal perl distribution, it's useful to look at
+F<t/lib/commonsense.t>.
 
-Investigate whether C<threads::shared> could share aggregates properly with
-only Perl level changes to shared.pm
+=head2 Move dual-life pod/*.PL into ext
+
+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
 
@@ -150,23 +164,54 @@ 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.
 
+=head2 embed.pl/makedef.pl
+
+There is a script F<embed.pl> that generates several header files to prefix
+all of Perl's symbols in a consistent way, to provide some semblance of
+namespace support in C<C>. Functions are declared in F<embed.fnc>, variables
+in F<interpvar.h>. Quite a few of the functions and variables
+are conditionally declared there, using C<#ifdef>. However, F<embed.pl>
+doesn't understand the C macros, so the rules about which symbols are present
+when is duplicated in F<makedef.pl>. Writing things twice is bad, m'kay.
+It would be good to teach C<embed.pl> to understand the conditional
+compilation, and hence remove the duplication, and the mistakes it has caused.
+
+=head2 use strict; and AutoLoad
 
+Currently if you write
 
+    package Whack;
+    use AutoLoader 'AUTOLOAD';
+    use strict;
+    1;
+    __END__
+    sub bloop {
+        print join (' ', No, strict, here), "!\n";
+    }
 
+then C<use strict;> isn't in force within the autoloaded subroutines. It would
+be more consistent (and less surprising) to arrange for all lexical pragmas
+in force at the __END__ block to be in force within each autoloaded subroutine.
 
+There's a similar problem with SelfLoader.
 
+=head2 profile installman
+
+The F<installman> script is slow. All it is doing text processing, which we're
+told is something Perl is good at. So it would be nice to know what it is doing
+that is taking so much CPU, and where possible address it.
+
+=head2 enable lexical enabling/disabling of inidvidual warnings
+
+Currently, warnings can only be enabled or disabled by category. There
+are times when it would be useful to quash a single warning, not a
+whole category.
 
 =head1 Tasks that need a little sysadmin-type knowledge
 
 Or if you prefer, tasks that you would learn from, and broaden your skills
 base...
 
-=head2 Relocatable perl
-
-The C level patches needed to create a relocatable perl binary are done, as
-is the work on F<Config.pm>. All that's left to do is the C<Configure> tweaking
-to let people specify how they want to do the install.
-
 =head2 make HTML install work
 
 There is an C<installhtml> target in the Makefile. It's marked as
@@ -192,9 +237,7 @@ C<endservent>, two or more C<=items> giving the different parameter lists, such
 as
 
     =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH,REPLACEMENT
-    
     =item substr EXPR,OFFSET,LENGTH
-    
     =item substr EXPR,OFFSET
 
 and different parameter lists having different meanings. (eg C<select>)
@@ -271,7 +314,7 @@ wanted to perform perl level coverage, and another to specify C level
 coverage, and have C<Configure> and the F<Makefile> do all the right things
 automatically.
 
-=head2 Make Config.pm cope with differences between build and installed perl
+=head2 Make Config.pm cope with differences between built and installed perl
 
 Quite often vendors ship a perl binary compiled with their (pay-for)
 compilers.  People install a free compiler, such as gcc. To work out how to
@@ -285,13 +328,6 @@ possibly involving probing at install time or later, so that the C<%Config> in
 a binary distribution better describes the installed machine, when the
 installed machine differs from the build machine in some significant way.
 
-=head2 make parallel builds work
-
-Currently parallel builds (such as C<make -j3>) don't work reliably. We believe
-that this is due to incomplete dependency specification in the F<Makefile>.
-It would be good if someone were able to track down the causes of these
-problems, so that parallel builds worked properly.
-
 =head2 linker specification files
 
 Some platforms mandate that you provide a list of a shared library's external
@@ -304,125 +340,267 @@ C<Configure> to enable it. This would allow Unix users to test that the
 export list is correct, and to build a perl that does not pollute the global
 namespace with private symbols.
 
+=head2 Cross-compile support
+
+Currently C<Configure> understands C<-Dusecrosscompile> option. This option
+arranges for building C<miniperl> for TARGET machine, so this C<miniperl> is
+assumed then to be copied to TARGET machine and used as a replacement of full
+C<perl> executable.
+
+This could be done little differently. Namely C<miniperl> should be built for
+HOST and then full C<perl> with extensions should be compiled for TARGET.
+This, however, might require extra trickery for %Config: we have one config
+first for HOST and then another for TARGET.  Tools like MakeMaker will be
+mightily confused.  Having around two different types of executables and
+libraries (HOST and TARGET) makes life interesting for Makefiles and
+shell (and Perl) scripts.  There is $Config{run}, normally empty, which
+can be used as an execution wrapper.  Also note that in some
+cross-compilation/execution environments the HOST and the TARGET do
+not see the same filesystem(s), the $Config{run} may need to do some
+file/directory copying back and forth.
+
+=head2 roffitall
+
+Make F<pod/roffitall> be updated by F<pod/buildtoc>.
+
+=head2 Split "linker" from "compiler"
+
+Right now, Configure probes for two commands, and sets two variables:
+
+=over 4
 
+=item * C<cc> (in F<cc.U>)
 
+This variable holds the name of a command to execute a C compiler which
+can resolve multiple global references that happen to have the same
+name.  Usual values are F<cc> and F<gcc>.
+Fervent ANSI compilers may be called F<c89>.  AIX has F<xlc>.
+
+=item * C<ld> (in F<dlsrc.U>)
+
+This variable indicates the program to be used to link
+libraries for dynamic loading.  On some systems, it is F<ld>.
+On ELF systems, it should be C<$cc>.  Mostly, we'll try to respect
+the hint file setting.
+
+=back
+
+There is an implicit historical assumption from around Perl5.000alpha
+something, that C<$cc> is also the correct command for linking object files
+together to make an executable. This may be true on Unix, but it's not true
+on other platforms, and there are a maze of work arounds in other places (such
+as F<Makefile.SH>) to cope with this.
+
+Ideally, we should create a new variable to hold the name of the executable
+linker program, probe for it in F<Configure>, and centralise all the special
+case logic there or in hints files.
+
+A small bikeshed issue remains - what to call it, given that C<$ld> is already
+taken (arguably for the wrong thing now, but on SunOS 4.1 it is the command
+for creating dynamically-loadable modules) and C<$link> could be confused with
+the Unix command line executable of the same name, which does something
+completely different. Andy Dougherty makes the counter argument "In parrot, I
+tried to call the command used to link object files and  libraries into an
+executable F<link>, since that's what my vaguely-remembered DOS and VMS
+experience suggested. I don't think any real confusion has ensued, so it's
+probably a reasonable name for perl5 to use."
+
+"Alas, I've always worried that introducing it would make things worse, 
+since now the module building utilities would have to look for 
+C<$Config{link}> and institute a fall-back plan if it weren't found."
+Although I can see that as confusing, given that C<$Config{d_link}> is true
+when (hard) links are available.
+
+=head2 Configure Windows using PowerShell
+
+Currently, Windows uses hard-coded config files based to build the
+config.h for compiling Perl.  Makefiles are also hard-coded and need to be 
+hand edited prior to building Perl. While this makes it easy to create a perl.exe 
+that works across multiple Windows versions, being able to accurately
+configure a perl.exe for a specific Windows versions and VS C++ would be
+a nice enhancement.  With PowerShell available on Windows XP and up, this 
+may now be possible.  Step 1 might be to investigate whether this is possible
+and use this to clean up our current makefile situation.  Step 2 would be to 
+see if there would be a way to use our existing metaconfig units to configure a
+Windows Perl or whether we go in a separate direction and make it so.  Of 
+course, we all know what step 3 is.
+
+=head2 decouple -g and -DDEBUGGING
+
+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 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.
 
 =head1 Tasks that need a little C knowledge
 
 These tasks would need a little C knowledge, but don't need any specific
 background or experience with XS, or how the Perl interpreter works
 
-=head2 Make it clear from -v if this is the exact official release
+=head2 Weed out needless PERL_UNUSED_ARG
+
+The C code uses the macro C<PERL_UNUSED_ARG> to stop compilers warning about
+unused arguments. Often the arguments can't be removed, as there is an
+external constraint that determines the prototype of the function, so this
+approach is valid. However, there are some cases where C<PERL_UNUSED_ARG>
+could be removed. Specifically
 
-Currently perl from C<p4>/C<rsync> ships with a F<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 until RC time, to minimise the possibility of versions of perl
-escaping that believe themselves to be newer than they actually are.
+=over 4
 
-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.
+=item *
 
-This task is really about thinking of an elegant way to arrange the C source
-such that it's trivial for the Pumpking to flag "this is an official release"
-when making a tarball, yet leave the default source saying "I'm not the
-official release".
+The prototypes of (nearly all) static functions can be changed
 
-=head2 Tidy up global variables
+=item *
 
-There's a note in F<intrpvar.h>
+Unused arguments generated by short cut macros are wasteful - the short cut
+macro used can be changed.
 
-  /* These two variables are needed to preserve 5.8.x bincompat because
-     we can't change function prototypes of two exported functions.
-     Probably should be taken out of blead soon, and relevant prototypes
-     changed.  */
+=back
 
-So doing this, and removing any of the unused variables still present would
-be good.
+=head2 Modernize the order of directories in @INC
 
-=head2 Ordering of "global" variables.
+The way @INC is laid out by default, one cannot upgrade core (dual-life)
+modules without overwriting files. This causes problems for binary
+package builders.  One possible proposal is laid out in this
+message:
+L<http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2002-04/msg02380.html>.
 
-F<thrdvar.h> and F<intrpvarh> define the "global" variables that need to be
-per-thread under ithreads, where the variables are actually elements in a
-structure. As C dictates, the variables must be laid out in order of
-declaration. There is a comment
-C</* Important ones in the first cache line (if alignment is done right) */>
-which implies that at some point in the past the ordering was carefully chosen
-(at least in part). However, it's clear that the ordering is less than perfect,
-as currently there are things such as 7 C<bool>s in a row, then something
-typically requiring 4 byte alignment, and then an odd C<bool> later on.
-(C<bool>s are typically defined as C<char>s). So it would be good for someone
-to review the ordering of the variables, to see how much alignment padding can
-be removed.
+=head2 -Duse32bit*
 
-=head2 bincompat functions
+Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
+On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
+is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
+Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
+options would be nice for perl 5.12.
 
-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?
+=head2 Profile Perl - am I hot or not?
 
-=head2 am I hot or not?
+The Perl source code is stable enough that it makes sense to profile it,
+identify and optimise the hotspots. It would be good to measure the
+performance of the Perl interpreter using free tools such as cachegrind,
+gprof, and dtrace, and work to reduce the bottlenecks they reveal.
 
-The idea of F<pp_hot.c> is that it contains the I<hot> ops, the ops that are
-most commonly used. The idea is that by grouping them, their object code will
-be adjacent in the executable, so they have a greater chance of already being
-in the CPU cache (or swapped in) due to being near another op already in use.
+As part of this, the idea of F<pp_hot.c> is that it contains the I<hot> ops,
+the ops that are most commonly used. The idea is that by grouping them, their
+object code will be adjacent in the executable, so they have a greater chance
+of already being in the CPU cache (or swapped in) due to being near another op
+already in use.
 
 Except that it's not clear if these really are the most commonly used ops. So
-anyone feeling like exercising their skill with coverage and profiling tools
-might want to determine what ops I<really> are the most commonly used. And in
-turn suggest evictions and promotions to achieve a better F<pp_hot.c>.
+as part of exercising your skills with coverage and profiling tools you might
+want to determine what ops I<really> are the most commonly used. And in turn
+suggest evictions and promotions to achieve a better F<pp_hot.c>.
+
+One piece of Perl code that might make a good testbed is F<installman>.
+
+=head2 Allocate OPs from arenas
+
+Currently all new OP structures are individually malloc()ed and free()d.
+All C<malloc> implementations have space overheads, and are now as fast as
+custom allocates so it would both use less memory and less CPU to allocate
+the various OP structures from arenas. The SV arena code can probably be
+re-used for this.
+
+Note that Configuring perl with C<-Accflags=-DPL_OP_SLAB_ALLOC> will use
+Perl_Slab_alloc() to pack optrees into a contiguous block, which is
+probably superior to the use of OP arenas, esp. from a cache locality
+standpoint.  See L<Profile Perl - am I hot or not?>.
+
+=head2 Improve win32/wince.c
+
+Currently, numerous functions look virtually, if not completely,
+identical in both C<win32/wince.c> and C<win32/win32.c> files, which can't
+be good.
+
+=head2 Use secure CRT functions when building with VC8 on Win32
+
+Visual C++ 2005 (VC++ 8.x) deprecated a number of CRT functions on the basis
+that they were "unsafe" and introduced differently named secure versions of
+them as replacements, e.g. instead of writing
+
+    FILE* f = fopen(__FILE__, "r");
+
+one should now write
+
+    FILE* f;
+    errno_t err = fopen_s(&f, __FILE__, "r"); 
 
-=head2 emulate the per-thread memory pool on Unix
+Currently, the warnings about these deprecations have been disabled by adding
+-D_CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE to the CFLAGS. It would be nice to remove that
+warning suppressant and actually make use of the new secure CRT functions.
 
-For Windows, ithreads allocates memory for each thread from a separate pool,
-which it discards at thread exit. It also checks that memory is free()d to
-the correct pool. Neither check is done on Unix, so code developed there won't
-be subject to such strictures, so can harbour bugs that only show up when the
-code reaches Windows.
+There is also a similar issue with POSIX CRT function names like fileno having
+been deprecated in favour of ISO C++ conformant names like _fileno. These
+warnings are also currently suppressed by adding -D_CRT_NONSTDC_NO_DEPRECATE. It
+might be nice to do as Microsoft suggest here too, although, unlike the secure
+functions issue, there is presumably little or no benefit in this case.
 
-It would be good to be able to optionally emulate the Window pool system on
-Unix, to let developers who only have access to Unix, or want to use
-Unix-specific debugging tools, check for these problems. To do this would
-involve figuring out how the C<PerlMem_*> macros wrap C<malloc()> access, and
-providing a layer that records/checks the identity of the thread making the
-call, and recording all the memory allocated by each thread via this API so
-that it can be summarily free()d at thread exit. One implementation idea
-would be to increase the size of allocation, and store the C<my_perl> pointer
-(to identify the thread) at the start, along with pointers to make a linked
-list of blocks for this thread. To avoid alignment problems it would be
-necessary to do something like
+=head2 Fix POSIX::access() and chdir() on Win32
 
-  union memory_header_padded {
-    struct memory_header {
-      void *thread_id;   /* For my_perl */
-      void *next;        /* Pointer to next block for this thread */
-    } data;
-    long double padding; /* whatever type has maximal alignment constraint */
-  };
+These functions currently take no account of DACLs and therefore do not behave
+correctly in situations where access is restricted by DACLs (as opposed to the
+read-only attribute).
 
+Furthermore, POSIX::access() behaves differently for directories having the
+read-only attribute set depending on what CRT library is being used. For
+example, the _access() function in the VC6 and VC7 CRTs (wrongly) claim that
+such directories are not writable, whereas in fact all directories are writable
+unless access is denied by DACLs. (In the case of directories, the read-only
+attribute actually only means that the directory cannot be deleted.) This CRT
+bug is fixed in the VC8 and VC9 CRTs (but, of course, the directory may still
+not actually be writable if access is indeed denied by DACLs).
 
-although C<long double> might not be the only type to add to the padding
-union.
+For the chdir() issue, see ActiveState bug #74552:
+http://bugs.activestate.com/show_bug.cgi?id=74552
 
-=head2 reduce duplication in sv_setsv_flags
+Therefore, DACLs should be checked both for consistency across CRTs and for
+the correct answer.
 
-C<Perl_sv_setsv_flags> has a comment
-C</* There's a lot of redundancy below but we're going for speed here */>
+(Note that perl's -w operator should not be modified to check DACLs. It has
+been written so that it reflects the state of the read-only attribute, even
+for directories (whatever CRT is being used), for symmetry with chmod().)
 
-Whilst this was true 10 years ago, the growing disparity between RAM and CPU
-speeds mean that the trade offs have changed. In addition, the duplicate code
-adds to the maintenance burden. It would be good to see how much of the
-redundancy can be pruned, particular in the less common paths. (Profiling
-tools at the ready...). For example, why does the test for
-"Can't redefine active sort subroutine" need to occur in two places?
+=head2 strcat(), strcpy(), strncat(), strncpy(), sprintf(), vsprintf()
 
+Maybe create a utility that checks after each libperl.a creation that
+none of the above (nor sprintf(), vsprintf(), or *SHUDDER* gets())
+ever creep back to libperl.a.
 
+  nm libperl.a | ./miniperl -alne '$o = $F[0] if /:$/; print "$o $F[1]" if $F[0] eq "U" && $F[1] =~ /^(?:strn?c(?:at|py)|v?sprintf|gets)$/'
+
+Note, of course, that this will only tell whether B<your> platform
+is using those naughty interfaces.
+
+=head2 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2, -fstack-protector
+
+Recent glibcs support C<-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2> and recent gcc
+(4.1 onwards?) supports C<-fstack-protector>, both of which give
+protection against various kinds of buffer overflow problems.
+These should probably be used for compiling Perl whenever available,
+Configure and/or hints files should be adjusted to probe for the
+availability of these features and enable them as appropriate.
+
+=head2 Arenas for GPs? For MAGIC?
+
+C<struct gp> and C<struct magic> are both currently allocated by C<malloc>.
+It might be a speed or memory saving to change to using arenas. Or it might
+not. It would need some suitable benchmarking first. In particular, C<GP>s
+can probably be changed with minimal compatibility impact (probably nothing
+outside of the core, or even outside of F<gv.c> allocates them), but they
+probably aren't allocated/deallocated often enough for a speed saving. Whereas
+C<MAGIC> is allocated/deallocated more often, but in turn, is also something
+more externally visible, so changing the rules here may bite external code.
+
+=head2 Shared arenas
+
+Several SV body structs are now the same size, notably PVMG and PVGV, PVAV and
+PVHV, and PVCV and PVFM. It should be possible to allocate and return same
+sized bodies from the same actual arena, rather than maintaining one arena for
+each. This could save 4-6K per thread, of memory no longer tied up in the
+not-yet-allocated part of an arena.
 
 
 =head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of XS
@@ -431,41 +609,175 @@ These tasks would need C knowledge, and roughly the level of knowledge of
 the perl API that comes from writing modules that use XS to interface to
 C.
 
-=head2 IPv6
+=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 Allow XSUBs to inline themselves as OPs
+
+For a simple XSUB, often the subroutine dispatch takes more time than the
+XSUB itself. The tokeniser already has the ability to inline constant
+subroutines - it would be good to provide a way to inline other subroutines.
+
+Specifically, simplest approach looks to be to allow an XSUB to provide an
+alternative implementation of itself as a custom OP. A new flag bit in
+C<CvFLAGS()> would signal to the peephole optimiser to take an optree
+such as this:
+
+    b  <@> leave[1 ref] vKP/REFC ->(end)
+    1     <0> enter ->2
+    2     <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v:{ ->3
+    a     <2> sassign vKS/2 ->b
+    8        <1> entersub[t2] sKS/TARG,1 ->9
+    -           <1> ex-list sK ->8
+    3              <0> pushmark s ->4
+    4              <$> const(IV 1) sM ->5
+    6              <1> rv2av[t1] lKM/1 ->7
+    5                 <$> gv(*a) s ->6
+    -              <1> ex-rv2cv sK ->-
+    7                 <$> gv(*x) s/EARLYCV ->8
+    -        <1> ex-rv2sv sKRM*/1 ->a
+    9           <$> gvsv(*b) s ->a
+
+perform the symbol table lookup of C<rv2cv> and C<gv(*x)>, locate the
+pointer to the custom OP that provides the direct implementation, and re-
+write the optree something like:
+
+    b  <@> leave[1 ref] vKP/REFC ->(end)
+    1     <0> enter ->2
+    2     <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v:{ ->3
+    a     <2> sassign vKS/2 ->b
+    7        <1> custom_x -> 8
+    -           <1> ex-list sK ->7
+    3              <0> pushmark s ->4
+    4              <$> const(IV 1) sM ->5
+    6              <1> rv2av[t1] lKM/1 ->7
+    5                 <$> gv(*a) s ->6
+    -              <1> ex-rv2cv sK ->-
+    -                 <$> ex-gv(*x) s/EARLYCV ->7
+    -        <1> ex-rv2sv sKRM*/1 ->a
+    8           <$> gvsv(*b) s ->a
+
+I<i.e.> the C<gv(*)> OP has been nulled and spliced out of the execution
+path, and the C<entersub> OP has been replaced by the custom op.
+
+This approach should provide a measurable speed up to simple XSUBs inside
+tight loops. Initially one would have to write the OP alternative
+implementation by hand, but it's likely that this should be reasonably
+straightforward for the type of XSUB that would benefit the most. Longer
+term, once the run-time implementation is proven, it should be possible to
+progressively update ExtUtils::ParseXS to generate OP implementations for
+some XSUBs.
+
+=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
+structures, such as C<SV>s, C<AV>s and C<HV>s. Currently, the dumping code
+B<uses> C<SV>s for its temporary buffers, which was a logical initial
+implementation choice, as they provide ready made memory handling.
+
+However, they also lead to a lot of confusion when it happens that what you're
+trying to debug is seen by the code in F<dump.c>, correctly or incorrectly, as
+a temporary scalar it can use for a temporary buffer. It's also not possible
+to dump scalars before the interpreter is properly set up, such as during
+ithreads cloning. It would be good to progressively replace the use of scalars
+as string accumulation buffers with something much simpler, directly allocated
+by C<malloc>. The F<dump.c> code is (or should be) only producing 7 bit
+US-ASCII, so output character sets are not an issue.
+
+Producing and proving an internal simple buffer allocation would make it easier
+to re-write the internals of the PerlIO subsystem to avoid using C<SV>s for
+B<its> buffers, use of which can cause problems similar to those of F<dump.c>,
+at similar times.
+
+=head2 safely supporting POSIX SA_SIGINFO
+
+Some years ago Jarkko supplied patches to provide support for the POSIX
+SA_SIGINFO feature in Perl, passing the extra data to the Perl signal handler.
+
+Unfortunately, it only works with "unsafe" signals, because under safe
+signals, by the time Perl gets to run the signal handler, the extra
+information has been lost. Moreover, it's not easy to store it somewhere,
+as you can't call mutexs, or do anything else fancy, from inside a signal
+handler.
+
+So it strikes me that we could provide safe SA_SIGINFO support
 
-Clean this up. Check everything in core works
+=over 4
 
-=head2 shrink C<GV>s, C<CV>s
+=item 1
 
-By removing unused elements and careful re-ordering, the structures for C<AV>s
-and C<HV>s have recently been shrunk considerably. It's probable that the same
-approach would find savings in C<GV>s and C<CV>s, if not all the other
-larger-than-C<PVMG> types.
+Provide global variables for two file descriptors
 
-=head2 merge Perl_sv_2[inpu]v
+=item 2
 
-There's a lot of code shared between C<Perl_sv_2iv_flags>,
-C<Perl_sv_2uv_flags>, C<Perl_sv_2nv>, and C<Perl_sv_2pv_flags>. It would be
-interesting to see if some of it can be merged into common shared static
-functions. In particular, C<Perl_sv_2uv_flags> started out as a cut&paste
-from C<Perl_sv_2iv_flags> around 5.005_50 time, and it may be possible to
-replace both with a single function that returns a value or union which is
-split out by the macros in F<sv.h>
+When the first request is made via C<sigaction> for C<SA_SIGINFO>, create a
+pipe, store the reader in one, the writer in the other
 
-=head2 UTF8 caching code
+=item 3
 
-The string position/offset cache is not optional. It should be.
+In the "safe" signal handler (C<Perl_csighandler()>/C<S_raise_signal()>), if
+the C<siginfo_t> pointer non-C<NULL>, and the writer file handle is open,
 
-=head2 Implicit Latin 1 => Unicode translation
+=over 8
 
-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).
+=item 1
 
-This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help.
+serialise signal number, C<struct siginfo_t> (or at least the parts we care
+about) into a small auto char buff
+
+=item 2
+
+C<write()> that (non-blocking) to the writer fd
+
+=over 12
+
+=item 1
+
+if it writes 100%, flag the signal in a counter of "signals on the pipe" akin
+to the current per-signal-number counts
+
+=item 2
+
+if it writes 0%, assume the pipe is full. Flag the data as lost?
+
+=item 3
+
+if it writes partially, croak a panic, as your OS is broken.
+
+=back
+
+=back
+
+=item 4
+
+in the regular C<PERL_ASYNC_CHECK()> processing, if there are "signals on
+the pipe", read the data out, deserialise, build the Perl structures on
+the stack (code in C<Perl_sighandler()>, the "unsafe" handler), and call as
+usual.
+
+=back
+
+I think that this gets us decent C<SA_SIGINFO> support, without the current risk
+of running Perl code inside the signal handler context. (With all the dangers
+of things like C<malloc> corruption that that currently offers us)
+
+For more information see the thread starting with this message:
+http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2008-03/msg00305.html
 
 =head2 autovivification
 
@@ -496,9 +808,18 @@ filesystem.
 temporarily retired in 5.8.1, and the -C has been repurposed, see
 L<perlrun>.)
 
+Most probably the right way to do this would be this:
+L</"Virtualize operating system access">.
+
 =head2 Unicode in %ENV
 
 Currently the %ENV entries are always byte strings.
+See L</"Virtualize operating system access">.
+
+=head2 Unicode and glob()
+
+Currently glob patterns and filenames returned from File::Glob::glob()
+are always byte strings.  See L</"Virtualize operating system access">.
 
 =head2 use less 'memory'
 
@@ -525,70 +846,220 @@ system() accepts a LIST syntax (and a PROGRAM LIST syntax) to avoid
 running a shell. readpipe() (the function behind qx//) could be similarly
 extended.
 
+=head2 Audit the code for destruction ordering assumptions
+
+Change 25773 notes
+
+    /* Need to check SvMAGICAL, as during global destruction it may be that
+       AvARYLEN(av) has been freed before av, and hence the SvANY() pointer
+       is now part of the linked list of SV heads, rather than pointing to
+       the original body.  */
+    /* FIXME - audit the code for other bugs like this one.  */
+
+adding the C<SvMAGICAL> check to
+
+    if (AvARYLEN(av) && SvMAGICAL(AvARYLEN(av))) {
+        MAGIC *mg = mg_find (AvARYLEN(av), PERL_MAGIC_arylen);
+
+Go through the core and look for similar assumptions that SVs have particular
+types, as all bets are off during global destruction.
+
+=head2 Extend PerlIO and PerlIO::Scalar
+
+PerlIO::Scalar doesn't know how to truncate().  Implementing this
+would require extending the PerlIO vtable.
 
+Similarly the PerlIO vtable doesn't know about formats (write()), or
+about stat(), or chmod()/chown(), utime(), or flock().
 
+(For PerlIO::Scalar it's hard to see what e.g. mode bits or ownership
+would mean.)
 
+PerlIO doesn't do directories or symlinks, either: mkdir(), rmdir(),
+opendir(), closedir(), seekdir(), rewinddir(), glob(); symlink(),
+readlink().
+
+See also L</"Virtualize operating system access">.
+
+=head2 -C on the #! line
+
+It should be possible to make -C work correctly if found on the #! line,
+given that all perl command line options are strict ASCII, and -C changes
+only the interpretation of non-ASCII characters, and not for the script file
+handle. To make it work needs some investigation of the ordering of function
+calls during startup, and (by implication) a bit of tweaking of that order.
+
+=head2 Organize error messages
+
+Perl's diagnostics (error messages, see L<perldiag>) could use
+reorganizing and formalizing so that each error message has its
+stable-for-all-eternity unique id, categorized by severity, type, and
+subsystem.  (The error messages would be listed in a datafile outside
+of the Perl source code, and the source code would only refer to the
+messages by the id.)  This clean-up and regularizing should apply
+for all croak() messages.
+
+This would enable all sorts of things: easier translation/localization
+of the messages (though please do keep in mind the caveats of
+L<Locale::Maketext> about too straightforward approaches to
+translation), filtering by severity, and instead of grepping for a
+particular error message one could look for a stable error id.  (Of
+course, changing the error messages by default would break all the
+existing software depending on some particular error message...)
+
+This kind of functionality is known as I<message catalogs>.  Look for
+inspiration for example in the catgets() system, possibly even use it
+if available-- but B<only> if available, all platforms will B<not>
+have catgets().
+
+For the really pure at heart, consider extending this item to cover
+also the warning messages (see L<perllexwarn>, C<warnings.pl>).
 
 =head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of the interpreter
 
 These tasks would need C knowledge, and knowledge of how the interpreter works,
 or a willingness to learn.
 
-=head2 lexical pragmas
+=head2 forbid labels with keyword names
 
-Document the new support for lexical pragmas in 5.9.3 and how %^H works.
-Maybe C<re>, C<encoding>, maybe other pragmas could be made lexical.
+Currently C<goto keyword> "computes" the label value:
 
-=head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program
+    $ perl -e 'goto print'
+    Can't find label 1 at -e line 1.
 
-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.
+It is controversial if the right way to avoid the confusion is to forbid
+labels with keyword names, or if it would be better to always treat
+bareword expressions after a "goto" as a label and never as a keyword.
 
-=head2 Constant folding
+=head2 truncate() prototype
 
-The peephole optimiser should trap errors during constant folding, and give
-up on the folding, rather than bailing out at compile time.  It is quite
-possible that the unfoldable constant is in unreachable code, eg something
-akin to C<$a = 0/0 if 0;>
+The prototype of truncate() is currently C<$$>. It should probably
+be C<*$> instead. (This is changed in F<opcode.pl>)
 
-=head2 LVALUE functions for lists
+=head2 decapsulation of smart match argument
 
-The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work for list or hash
-slices. This would be good to fix.
+Currently C<$foo ~~ $object> will die with the message "Smart matching a
+non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation". It would be nice to allow
+to bypass this by using explictly the syntax C<$foo ~~ %$object> or
+C<$foo ~~ @$object>.
+
+=head2 error reporting of [$a ; $b]
+
+Using C<;> inside brackets is a syntax error, and we don't propose to change
+that by giving it any meaning. However, it's not reported very helpfully:
+
+    $ perl -e '$a = [$b; $c];'
+    syntax error at -e line 1, near "$b;"
+    syntax error at -e line 1, near "$c]"
+    Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
+
+It should be possible to hook into the tokeniser or the lexer, so that when a
+C<;> is parsed where it is not legal as a statement terminator (ie inside
+C<{}> used as a hashref, C<[]> or C<()>) it issues an error something like
+I<';' isn't legal inside an expression - if you need multiple statements use a
+do {...} block>. See the thread starting at
+http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2008-09/msg00573.html
+
+=head2 lexicals used only once
+
+This warns:
+
+    $ perl -we '$pie = 42'
+    Name "main::pie" used only once: possible typo at -e line 1.
 
-=head2 LVALUE functions in the debugger
+This does not:
 
-The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work in the debugger. This
-would be good to fix.
+    $ perl -we 'my $pie = 42'
 
-=head2 _ prototype character
+Logically all lexicals used only once should warn, if the user asks for
+warnings.  An unworked RT ticket (#5087) has been open for almost seven
+years for this discrepancy.
 
-Study the possibility of adding a new prototype character, C<_>, meaning
-"this argument defaults to $_".
+=head2 UTF-8 revamp
 
-=head2 state variables
+The handling of Unicode is unclean in many places. For example, the regexp
+engine matches in Unicode semantics whenever the string or the pattern is
+flagged as UTF-8, but that should not be dependent on an internal storage
+detail of the string.
 
-C<my $foo if 0;> is deprecated, and should be replaced with
-C<state $x = "initial value\n";> the syntax from Perl 6.
+=head2 Properly Unicode safe tokeniser and pads.
 
-=head2 @INC source filter to Filter::Simple
+The tokeniser isn't actually very UTF-8 clean. C<use utf8;> is a hack -
+variable names are stored in stashes as raw bytes, without the utf-8 flag
+set. The pad API only takes a C<char *> pointer, so that's all bytes too. The
+tokeniser ignores the UTF-8-ness of C<PL_rsfp>, or any SVs returned from
+source filters.  All this could be fixed.
 
-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 state variable initialization in list context
+
+Currently this is illegal:
+
+    state ($a, $b) = foo(); 
+
+In Perl 6, C<state ($a) = foo();> and C<(state $a) = foo();> have different
+semantics, which is tricky to implement in Perl 5 as currently they produce
+the same opcode trees. The Perl 6 design is firm, so it would be good to
+implement the necessary code in Perl 5. There are comments in
+C<Perl_newASSIGNOP()> that show the code paths taken by various assignment
+constructions involving state variables.
+
+=head2 Implement $value ~~ 0 .. $range
+
+It would be nice to extend the syntax of the C<~~> operator to also
+understand numeric (and maybe alphanumeric) ranges.
+
+=head2 A does() built-in
+
+Like ref(), only useful. It would call the C<DOES> method on objects; it
+would also tell whether something can be dereferenced as an
+array/hash/etc., or used as a regexp, etc.
+L<http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-03/msg00481.html>
+
+=head2 Tied filehandles and write() don't mix
+
+There is no method on tied filehandles to allow them to be called back by
+formats.
+
+=head2 Propagate compilation hints to the debugger
+
+Currently a debugger started with -dE on the command-line doesn't see the
+features enabled by -E. More generally hints (C<$^H> and C<%^H>) aren't
+propagated to the debugger. Probably it would be a good thing to propagate
+hints from the innermost non-C<DB::> scope: this would make code eval'ed
+in the debugger see the features (and strictures, etc.) currently in
+scope.
+
+=head2 Attach/detach debugger from running program
+
+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.
+
+=head2 LVALUE functions for lists
+
+The old perltodo notes that lvalue functions don't work for list or hash
+slices. This would be good to fix.
 
 =head2 regexp optimiser optional
 
 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 UNITCHECK
+=head2 delete &function
 
-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.
+Allow to delete functions. One can already undef them, but they're still
+in the stash.
+
+=head2 C</w> regex modifier
+
+That flag would enable to match whole words, and also to interpolate
+arrays as alternations. With it, C</P/w> would be roughly equivalent to:
+
+    do { local $"='|'; /\b(?:P)\b/ }
+
+See L<http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-01/msg00400.html>
+for the discussion.
 
 =head2 optional optimizer
 
@@ -616,33 +1087,171 @@ perl 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.
 
-=head2 Self ties
+=head2 Self-ties
 
-self ties are currently illegal because they caused too many segfaults. Maybe
-the causes of these could be tracked down and self-ties on all types re-
-instated.
+Self-ties are currently illegal because they caused too many segfaults. Maybe
+the causes of these could be tracked down and self-ties on all types
+reinstated.
 
 =head2 Optimize away @_
 
 The old perltodo notes "Look at the "reification" code in C<av.c>".
 
-=head2 What hooks would assertions need?
+=head2 Virtualize operating system access
+
+Implement a set of "vtables" that virtualizes operating system access
+(open(), mkdir(), unlink(), readdir(), getenv(), etc.)  At the very
+least these interfaces should take SVs as "name" arguments instead of
+bare char pointers; probably the most flexible and extensible way
+would be for the Perl-facing interfaces to accept HVs.  The system
+needs to be per-operating-system and per-file-system
+hookable/filterable, preferably both from XS and Perl level
+(L<perlport/"Files and Filesystems"> is good reading at this point,
+in fact, all of L<perlport> is.)
+
+This has actually already been implemented (but only for Win32),
+take a look at F<iperlsys.h> and F<win32/perlhost.h>.  While all Win32
+variants go through a set of "vtables" for operating system access,
+non-Win32 systems currently go straight for the POSIX/Unix-style
+system/library call.  Similar system as for Win32 should be
+implemented for all platforms.  The existing Win32 implementation
+probably does not need to survive alongside this proposed new
+implementation, the approaches could be merged.
+
+What would this give us?  One often-asked-for feature this would
+enable is using Unicode for filenames, and other "names" like %ENV,
+usernames, hostnames, and so forth.
+(See L<perlunicode/"When Unicode Does Not Happen">.)
+
+But this kind of virtualization would also allow for things like
+virtual filesystems, virtual networks, and "sandboxes" (though as long
+as dynamic loading of random object code is allowed, not very safe
+sandboxes since external code of course know not of Perl's vtables).
+An example of a smaller "sandbox" is that this feature can be used to
+implement per-thread working directories: Win32 already does this.
+
+See also L</"Extend PerlIO and PerlIO::Scalar">.
+
+=head2 Investigate PADTMP hash pessimisation
+
+The peephole optimiser converts constants used for hash key lookups to shared
+hash key scalars. Under ithreads, something is undoing this work.
+See http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2007-09/msg00793.html
+
+=head2 Store the current pad in the OP slab allocator
+
+=for clarification
+I hope that I got that "current pad" part correct
+
+Currently we leak ops in various cases of parse failure. I suggested that we
+could solve this by always using the op slab allocator, and walking it to
+free ops. Dave comments that as some ops are already freed during optree
+creation one would have to mark which ops are freed, and not double free them
+when walking the slab. He notes that one problem with this is that for some ops
+you have to know which pad was current at the time of allocation, which does
+change. I suggested storing a pointer to the current pad in the memory allocated
+for the slab, and swapping to a new slab each time the pad changes. Dave thinks
+that this would work.
+
+=head2 repack the optree
+
+Repacking the optree after execution order is determined could allow
+removal of NULL ops, and optimal ordering of OPs with respect to cache-line
+filling.  The slab allocator could be reused for this purpose.  I think that
+the best way to do this is to make it an optional step just before the
+completed optree is attached to anything else, and to use the slab allocator
+unchanged, so that freeing ops is identical whether or not this step runs.
+Note that the slab allocator allocates ops downwards in memory, so one would
+have to actually "allocate" the ops in reverse-execution order to get them
+contiguous in memory in execution order.
+
+See http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2007/12/msg131975.html
+
+Note that running this copy, and then freeing all the old location ops would
+cause their slabs to be freed, which would eliminate possible memory wastage if
+the previous suggestion is implemented, and we swap slabs more frequently.
+
+=head2 eliminate incorrect line numbers in warnings
+
+This code
+
+    use warnings;
+    my $undef;
+    
+    if ($undef == 3) {
+    } elsif ($undef == 0) {
+    }
 
-Assertions are in the core, and work. However, assertions needed to be added
-as a core patch, rather than an XS module in ext, or a CPAN module, because
-the core has no hooks in the necessary places. It would be useful to
-investigate what hooks would need to be added to make it possible to provide
-the full assertion support from a CPAN module, so that we aren't constraining
-the imagination of future CPAN authors.
+used to produce this output:
 
+    Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at wrong.pl line 4.
+    Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq (==) at wrong.pl line 4.
 
+where the line of the second warning was misreported - it should be line 5.
+Rafael fixed this - the problem arose because there was no nextstate OP
+between the execution of the C<if> and the C<elsif>, hence C<PL_curcop> still
+reports that the currently executing line is line 4. The solution was to inject
+a nextstate OPs for each C<elsif>, although it turned out that the nextstate
+OP needed to be a nulled OP, rather than a live nextstate OP, else other line
+numbers became misreported. (Jenga!)
 
+The problem is more general than C<elsif> (although the C<elsif> case is the
+most common and the most confusing). Ideally this code
 
+    use warnings;
+    my $undef;
+    
+    my $a = $undef + 1;
+    my $b
+      = $undef
+      + 1;
+
+would produce this output
+
+    Use of uninitialized value $undef in addition (+) at wrong.pl line 4.
+    Use of uninitialized value $undef in addition (+) at wrong.pl line 7.
+
+(rather than lines 4 and 5), but this would seem to require every OP to carry
+(at least) line number information.
+
+What might work is to have an optional line number in memory just before the
+BASEOP structure, with a flag bit in the op to say whether it's present.
+Initially during compile every OP would carry its line number. Then add a late
+pass to the optimiser (potentially combined with L</repack the optree>) which
+looks at the two ops on every edge of the graph of the execution path. If
+the line number changes, flags the destination OP with this information.
+Once all paths are traced, replace every op with the flag with a
+nextstate-light op (that just updates C<PL_curcop>), which in turn then passes
+control on to the true op. All ops would then be replaced by variants that
+do not store the line number. (Which, logically, why it would work best in
+conjunction with L</repack the optree>, as that is already copying/reallocating
+all the OPs)
+
+(Although I should note that we're not certain that doing this for the general
+case is worth it)
+
+=head2 optimize tail-calls
+
+Tail-calls present an opportunity for broadly applicable optimization;
+anywhere that C<< return foo(...) >> is called, the outer return can
+be replaced by a goto, and foo will return directly to the outer
+caller, saving (conservatively) 25% of perl's call&return cost, which
+is relatively higher than in C.  The scheme language is known to do
+this heavily.  B::Concise provides good insight into where this
+optimization is possible, ie anywhere entersub,leavesub op-sequence
+occurs.
+
+ perl -MO=Concise,-exec,a,b,-main -e 'sub a{ 1 }; sub b {a()}; b(2)'
+
+Bottom line on this is probably a new pp_tailcall function which
+combines the code in pp_entersub, pp_leavesub.  This should probably
+be done 1st in XS, and using B::Generate to patch the new OP into the
+optrees.
 
 =head1 Big projects
 
 Tasks that will get your name mentioned in the description of the "Highlights
-of 5.10"
+of 5.12"
 
 =head2 make ithreads more robust
 
@@ -651,6 +1260,10 @@ Generally make ithreads more robust. See also L</iCOW>
 This task is incremental - even a little bit of work on it will help, and
 will be greatly appreciated.
 
+One bit would be to write the missing code in sv.c:Perl_dirp_dup.
+
+Fix Perl_sv_dup, et al so that threads can return objects.
+
 =head2 iCOW
 
 Sarathy and Arthur have a proposal for an improved Copy On Write which
@@ -665,3 +1278,30 @@ Fix (or rewrite) the implementation of the C</(?{...})/> closures.
 
 This will allow the use of a regex from inside (?{ }), (??{ }) and
 (?(?{ })|) constructs.
+
+=head2 Add class set operations to regexp engine
+
+Apparently these are quite useful. Anyway, Jeffery Friedl wants them.
+
+demerphq has this on his todo list, but right at the bottom.  
+
+
+=head1 Tasks for microperl
+
+
+[ Each and every one of these may be obsolete, but they were listed
+  in the old Todo.micro file]
+
+
+=head2 make creating uconfig.sh automatic 
+
+=head2 make creating Makefile.micro automatic
+
+=head2 do away with fork/exec/wait?
+
+(system, popen should be enough?)
+
+=head2 some of the uconfig.sh really needs to be probed (using cc) in buildtime:
+
+(uConfigure? :-) native datatype widths and endianness come to mind
+