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.
=head1 Tasks that need a knowledge of XS
=head2 Organize error messages
Perl's diagnostics (error messages, see L<perldiag>) could use
-reorganizing so that each error message has its
+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
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>
-catgets().
+have catgets().
For the really pure at heart, consider extending this item to cover
also the warning messages (see L<perllexwarn>, C<warnings.pl>).