Nim/todo.txt

version 0.8.14
==============

- BUG: type TX = TTable[string, int]
- warning for implicit openArray -> varargs conversion
- implement explicit varargs; **but** ``len(varargs)`` problem remains! 
  --> solve by implicit conversion from varargs to openarray
- implicit invokation of `items`/`pairs` seems nice

version 0.9.0
=============

- GC: marker procs for native Nimrod GC and Boehm GC; precise stack marking;
  escape analysis for string/seq seems to be easy to do too;
  even further write barrier specialization
- dead code elim for JS backend; 'of' operator for JS backend
- test the sort implementation again
- const ptr/ref
- unsigned ints and bignums; requires abstract integer literal type: 
  use tyInt+node for that
- implement the high level optimizer
- change overloading resolution
- implement closures; implement proper coroutines
- implement ``partial`` pragma for partial evaluation
- we need to support iteration of 2 different data structures in parallel
- make exceptions compatible with C++ exceptions
- ``=`` should be overloadable; requires specialization for ``=``
- 'const' objects including case objects
- os module should use Windows Unicode versions
- 64bit build for Windows
- change how comments are part of the AST
- optional indentation for 'case' statement; hm, keep in mind other syntax
  changes that people want; may turn out to be a bad idea
- activate more thread tests
- optimize method dispatchers

Bugs
----
- bug: generic assign still buggy
  - special case the generic assign that needs to care about case objects

- bug: returning a tyVar does not mean it is save to return it:
  proc forward[T](x: var T): var T = result = x
  proc p(): var int = 
    var x: int
    result = forward(x)

- bug: stress testing basic method example (eval example) 
  without ``-d:release`` leaks memory; good way to figure out how a 
  fixed amount of stack can hold an arbitrary number of GC roots!


version 0.9.XX
==============

- implicit ref/ptr->var conversion; the compiler may store an object
  implicitly on the heap for write barrier efficiency; better: 
  proc specialization in the code gen
- EcmaScript needs a new and better code gen: simply adapt the C code gen to it
- tlastmod returns wrong results on BSD (Linux, MacOS X: works)
- nested tuple unpacking; tuple unpacking in non-var-context
- 'nimrod def': does not always work?
- test branch coverage
- checked exceptions
- make pegs support a compile-time option and make c2nim use regexes instead
  per default?
- fix implicit generic routines
- improve docgen to use the semantic pass
- 'export' feature (requires improved docgen)
- think about ``{:}.toTable[int, string]()``
- mocking support with ``tyProxy`` that does:
  o.p(x) --> p(o, x) -->  myMacro(o, p, x)
  
  This is really the opposite of ``tyExpr``:
  * For parameter ``tyExpr`` any argument matches.
  * Argument ``tyProxy`` matches any parameter.
  
- nice idea:

  p(a, b): 
    echo a
    echo b
  
  is the same as:
  
  p(a, b, proc() =
    echo a
    echo b)

Library
-------

- wrappers for poppler; libharu
- suffix trees
- locale support; i18n module
- bignums

- pdcurses bindings

- for system:
  proc `@` [T](a: openArray[T]): seq[T] = 
    newSeq(result, a.len)
    for i in 0..a.len-1: result[i] = a[i]
    
  --> ensure @[] calls the array version!


Low priority
------------

- ``with proc `+`(x, y: T): T`` for generic code
- new feature: ``distinct T with operations``
- find a way for easy constructors and destructors; (destructors are much more
  important than constructors)
- code generated for type information is wasteful
- resizing of strings/sequences could take into account the memory that
  is allocated
- timeout for locks
- compilation cache:
  - adapt thread var emulation to care about the new merge operation
  - check for interface changes; if only the implemenation changes, no
    need to recompile clients; er ... what about templates, macros or anything
    that has inlining semantics?
- codegen should use "NIM_CAST" macro and respect aliasing rules for GCC

Version 2
=========

- language change: inheritance should only work with reference types, so that
  the ``type`` field is not needed for objects! --> zero overhead aggregation
  BETTER: ``of`` and safe object conversions only work with ref objects. Same
  for multi methods.
  
- explicit nil types?
  * nil seq[int]
  * nil string
  * nil ref int
  * nil ptr THallo
  * nil proc 

- better for backwards compatibility: default nilable, but ``not nil``
  notation:
  
  type
    PWindow = ref TWindow not nil
    
  The problem with ``nil`` is that the language currently relies on it for
  implicit initialization. Initialization is different from assignment. The
  issues can "easily" dealt with by ensuring:
  
    var x = myProc() # checks myProc() initializes every pointer explicitely
    
- generalized case statement (requires better transf)
- rethink the syntax: distinction between expr and stmt is unfortunate; 
  indentation handling is quite complex too; problem with exception handling
  is that often the scope of ``try`` is wrong and apart from that ``try`` is
  a full blown statement; a ``try`` expression might be a good idea to make
  error handling more light-weight
  people also want ``inc a; inc b``
  --> solved by providing an expr version of most control structures?