perltodo.pod

MSYS在windows下模拟了一个类unix的终端

=item VecArray

Implement array using vec().  Nathan Torkington has working code to
do this.

=item SubstrArray

Implement array using substr()

=item VirtualArray

Implement array using a file

=item ShiftSplice

Defines shift et al in terms of splice method

=back

=head2 Procedural options

Support procedural interfaces for the common cases of Perl's
gratuitously OOO modules.  Tom objects to "use IO::File" reading many
thousands of lines of code.

=head2 RPC

Write a module for transparent, portable remote procedure calls.  (Not
core).  This touches on the CORBA and ILU work.

=head2 y2k localtime/gmtime

Write a module, Y2k::Catch, which overloads localtime and gmtime's
returned year value and catches "bad" attempts to use it.

=head2 Export File::Find variables

Make File::Find export C<$name> etc manually, at least if asked to.

=head2 Ioctl

Finish a proper Ioctl module.

=head2 Debugger attach/detach

Permit a user to debug an already-running program.

=head2 Regular Expression debugger

Create a visual profiler/debugger tool that stepped you through the
execution of a regular expression point by point.  Ilya has a module
to color-code and display regular expression parses and executions.
There's something at http://tkworld.org/ that might be a good start,
it's a Tk/Tcl RE wizard, that builds regexen of many flavours.

=head2 Alternative RE Syntax

Make an alternative regular expression syntax that is accessed through
a module.  For instance,

  use RE;
  $re = start_of_line()
      ->literal("1998/10/08")
      ->optional( whitespace() )
      ->literal("[")
      ->remember( many( or( "-", digit() ) ) );

  if (/$re/) {
    print "time is $1\n";
  }

Newbies to regular expressions typically only use a subset of the full
language.  Perhaps you wouldn't have to implement the full feature set.

=head2 Bundled modules

Nicholas Clark ([e-mail]) had a patch for storing modules in
zipped format.  This needs exploring and concluding.

=head2 Expect

Adopt IO::Tty, make it as portable as Don Libes' "expect" (can we link
against expect code?), and perfect a Perl version of expect.  IO::Tty
and expect could then be distributed as part of the core distribution,
replacing Comm.pl and other hacks.

=head2 GUI::Native

A simple-to-use interface to native graphical abilities would
be welcomed.  Oh, Perl's access Tk is nice enough, and reasonably
portable, but it's not particularly as fast as one would like.
Simple access to the mouse's cut buffer or mouse-presses shouldn't
required loading a few terabytes of Tk code.

=head2 Update semibroken auxiliary tools; h2ph, a2p, etc.

Kurt Starsinic is working on h2ph.  mjd has fixed bugs in a2p in the
past.  a2p apparently doesn't work on nawk and gawk extensions.
Graham Barr has an Include module that does h2ph work at runtime.

=head2 pod2html

A short-term fix: pod2html generates absolute HTML links.  Make it
generate relative links.

=head2 Podchecker

Something like lint for Pod would be good.  Something that catches
common errors as well as gross ones.  Brad Appleton is putting
together something as part of his PodParser work.

=head1 Tom's Wishes

=head2 Webperl

Design a webperl environment that's as tightly integrated and as
easy-to-use as Perl's current command-line environment.

=head2 Mobile agents

More work on a safe and secure execution environment for mobile
agents would be neat; the Safe.pm module is a start, but there's a
still a lot to be done in that area.  Adopt Penguin?

=head2 POSIX on non-POSIX

Standard programming constructs for non-POSIX systems would help a
lot of programmers stuck on primitive, legacy systems.  For example,
Microsoft still hasn't made a usable POSIX interface on their clunky
systems, which means that standard operations such as alarm() and
fork(), both critical for sophisticated client-server programming,
must both be kludged around.

I'm unsure whether Tom means to emulate alarm( )and fork(), or merely
to provide a document like perlport.pod to say which features are
portable and which are not.

=head2 Portable installations

Figure out a portable semi-gelled installation, that is, one without
full paths.  Larry has said that he's thinking about this.  Ilya
pointed out that perllib_mangle() is good for this.

=head1 Win32 Stuff

=head2 Rename new headers to be consistent with the rest

=head2 Sort out the spawnvp() mess

=head2 Work out DLL versioning

=head2 Style-check

=head1 Would be nice to have

=over 4

=item C<pack "(stuff)*">

=item Contiguous bitfields in pack/unpack

=item lexperl

=item Bundled perl preprocessor

=item Use posix calls internally where possible

=item format BOTTOM

=item -i rename file only when successfully changed

=item All ARGV input should act like <>

=item report HANDLE [formats].

=item support in perlmain to rerun debugger

=item lvalue functions

Tuomas Lukka, on behalf of the PDL project, greatly desires this and
Ilya has a patch for it (probably against an older version of Perl).
Tuomas points out that what PDL really wants is lvalue I<methods>,
not just subs.

=back

=head1 Possible pragmas

=head2 'less'

(use less memory, CPU)

=head1 Optimizations

=head2 constant function cache

=head2 foreach(reverse...)

=head2 Cache eval tree

Unless lexical outer scope used (mark in &compiling?).

=head2 rcatmaybe

=head2 Shrink opcode tables

Via multiple implementations selected in peep.

=head2 Cache hash value

Not a win, according to Guido.

=head2 Optimize away @_ where possible

=head2 Optimize sort by { $a <=> $b }

Greg Bacon added several more sort optimizations.  These have
made it into 5.005_55, thanks to Hans Mulder.

=head2 Rewrite regexp parser for better integrated optimization

The regexp parser was rewritten for 5.005.  Ilya's the regexp guru.

=head1 Vague possibilities

=over 4

=item ref function in list context

This seems impossible to do without substantially breaking code.

=item make tr/// return histogram in list context?

=item Loop control on do{} et al

=item Explicit switch statements

Nobody has yet managed to come up with a switch syntax that would
allow for mixed hash, constant, regexp checks.  Submit implementation
with syntax, please.

=item compile to real threaded code

=item structured types

=item Modifiable $1 et al

The intent is for this to be a means of editing the matched portions of
the target string.

=back

=head1 To Do Or Not To Do

These are things that have been discussed in the past and roundly
criticized for being of questionable value.

=head2 Making my() work on "package" variables

Being able to say my($Foo::Bar), something that sounds ludicrous and
the 5.6 pumpking has mocked.

=head2 "or" testing defined not truth

We tell people that C<||> can be used to give a default value to a
variable:

    $children = shift || 5;		# default is 5 children

which is almost (but not):

    $children = shift;
    $children = 5 unless $children;

but if the first argument was given and is "0", then it will be
considered false by C<||> and C<5> used instead.  Really we want
an C<||>-like operator that behaves like:

    $children = shift;
    $children = 5 unless defined $children;

Namely, a C<||> that tests defined-ness rather than truth.  One was
discussed, and a patch submitted, but the objections were many.  While
there were objections, many still feel the need.  At least it was
decided that C<??> is the best name for the operator.

=head2 "dynamic" lexicals

  my $x;
  sub foo {
    local $x;
  }

Localizing, as Tim Bunce points out, is a separate concept from
whether the variable is global or lexical.  Chip Salzenberg had
an implementation once, but Larry thought it had potential to
confuse.

=head2 "class"-based, rather than package-based "lexicals"

This is like what the Alias module provides, but the variables would
be lexicals reserved by perl at compile-time, which really are indices
pointing into the pseudo-hash object visible inside every method so
declared.

=head1 Threading

=head2 Modules

Which of the standard modules are thread-safe?  Which CPAN modules?
How easy is it to fix those non-safe modules?

=head2 Testing

Threading is still experimental.  Every reproducible bug identifies
something else for us to fix.  Find and submit more of these problems.

=head2 $AUTOLOAD

=head2 exit/die

Consistent semantics for exit/die in threads.

=head2 External threads

Better support for externally created threads.

=head2 Thread::Pool

=head2 thread-safety

Spot-check globals like statcache and global GVs for thread-safety.
"B<Part done>", says Sarathy.

=head2 Per-thread GVs

According to Sarathy, this would make @_ be the same in threaded
and non-threaded, as well as helping solve problems like filehandles
(the same filehandle currently cannot be used in two threads).

=head1 Compiler

=head2 Optimization

The compiler's back-end code-generators for creating bytecode or
compilable C code could use optimization work.

=head2 Byteperl

Figure out how and where byteperl will be built for the various
platforms.

=head2 Precompiled modules

Save byte-compiled modules on disk.

=head2 Executables

Auto-produce executable.

=head2 Typed lexicals

Typed lexicals should affect B::CC::load_pad.

=head2 Win32

Workarounds to help Win32 dynamic loading.

=head2 END blocks

END blocks need saving in compiled output, now that CHECK blocks
are available.

=head2 _AUTOLOAD

_AUTOLOAD prodding.

=head2 comppadlist

Fix comppadlist (names in comppad_name can have fake SvCUR
from where newASSIGNOP steals the field).

=head2 Cached compilation

Can we install modules as bytecode?

=head1 Recently Finished Tasks

=head2 Figure a way out of $^(capital letter)

Figure out a clean way to extend $^(capital letter) beyond
the 26 alphabets.  (${^WORD} maybe?)

Mark-Jason Dominus sent a patch which went into 5.005_56.

=head2 Filenames

Keep filenames in the distribution and in the standard module set
be 8.3 friendly where feasible.  Good luck changing the standard
modules, though.

=head2 Foreign lines

Perl should be more generous in accepting foreign line terminations.
Mostly B<done> in 5.005.

=head2 Namespace cleanup

    symbol-space: "pl_" prefix for all global vars
                  "Perl_" prefix for all functions

    CPP-space:	  stop malloc()/free() pollution unless asked

=head2 ISA.pm

Rename and alter ISA.pm.  B<Done>.  It is now base.pm.

=head2 gettimeofday

See Time::HiRes.

=head2 autocroak?

This is the Fatal.pm module, so any builtin that does
not return success automatically die()s.  If you're feeling brave, tie
this in with the unified exceptions scheme.

=cut