Carp/docs/Todo.org

• Milestones
  • 0.3 - Hopefully done "soon", fixing the most pressing issues.
  • 0.4 - A nice minimal version of the language. Should be possible to use for somewhat realistic projects.
  • 1.0 - The completed version of the language with all planned features and extra nice ergonomics.
• Unsorted Todo:s
• Critical Bugs
  • 0.3
    • References must keep track of their origin and prevent usage of them if the origin has been given away.
    • Recursive functions inside modules are broken.
• Big Language Features
  • 1.0
    • Lambdas
    • Tagged unions (also known as "sum types" or "enums")
    • Stack allocated Array with an explicit size.
• Tests to write
  • Tests that make sure all the various type errors are triggered.
• Smaller Language Features ("niceties")
  • 0.4
    • Prevent usage of 'private' functions from outside their module.
    • Type annotations should affect the type, not just check it.
    • Remove StringCopy.append, use String.append in all those cases.
  • 1.0
    • Returning refs in functions should be possible to prove safe in some cases, if origin or ref is stored during memory management pass. Requires lifetimes or similar.
    • Array.copy should just do a memcopy for primitive/plain types. Select most concrete version of 'copy'?
    • A way of telling Carp if an external type is primitive (and thus freely copy:able) or not and must be borrowed.
    • Macros for generating 'read' functions to read objects back into memory from string representation.
    • Kind-checking for types (make sure the type variables match, etc).
    • Allow unification of generic struct '(t a)' with concrete struct, i.e. (Array Int).
    • Enable errors when instantiating deps. Requires that the deps function for templates should return an Either.
• Macro System
  • 1.0
    • Quasiquote
    • Splicing in macros
    • Pattern matching on arguments in macros?
    • Some lists and similar things generated by built in dynamic functions like 'cons' etc don't create proper Info for their XObjs?
• Tooling
  • 0.4
    • The error reporting in Eval is a mess, must make it possible to return errors with correct location for all kinds of errors.
    • Errors in macros should present the code location of both the macro and of the code that uses of it.
    • Flycheck hangs and eats all resources sometimes. One ugly solution would be to have a timer that kills the process after a certain time when running with –check
    • Can't test things like 'examples/resolve.carp' because test output (= the error message) is dependent on local folder structure.
  • 1.0
    • Show "call stack" when getting an error during concretization.
    • Make the flags sent to the compiler be saved into different groups depending on actual compiler.
    • Project templates.
    • Somehow make it possible to enter ":t foo" at the REPL (can't be done now because each atom is evaluated separately)
    • Preserve whitespace to allow saving forms back to disk.
    • Refactorings at the REPL. Rename, extract function, add/remove parameter?
    • Emacs-mode: Make foreach and deftype indent correctly.
    • Emacs-mode: Make foreach, and*, not*, etc. into keywords (highlight them).
    • A way to assert compiler errors in tests.
• Code generation
  • [1.X] LLVM backend
  • [?] Emit #LINE macros in the generated C code?
• Libraries
  • Make Vector generic
  • Threading
  • Game development libraries with switchable backends
• Documentation
  • Document all core functions
  • Write a guide to how the compiler internals work
  • Improve the Memory.md docs
• Ugliness
  • Would be nice if Info from deftypes propagated to the templates for source location of their member functions.
• Language Design Considerations
  • How to handle heap allocated values? Box type with reference count?
  • Fixed-size stack allocated arrays would be useful (also as members of structs)
  • Macros in modules must be qualified right now, is that a good long-term solution or should there be a 'use' for dynamic code?
  • Allow use of 'the' as a wrapper when defining a variable or function, i.e. (the (Fn [Int] Int) (defn [x] x))?
  • Being able to use 'the' in function parameter declarations, i.e. (defn f [(the Int x)] x) to enforce a type?
  • Distinguish immutable/mutable refs?
  • Reintroduce the p-string patch but with support for embedded string literals?
  • Rename deftype to defstruct?
  • Syntax for pointer type, perhaps "^"?
  • Defining a function like 'add-ref' (see the numeric modules), refering to '' does not resolve to '' inside the module, which gives the function an overly generic type.
• Notes
  • Should depsForCopyFunc and depsForDeleteFunc really be needed in Array templates, they should instantiate automatically when used?
  • Hard to test '(reload)' since it will ignore currently loaded files

Milestones

0.3 - Hopefully done "soon", fixing the most pressing issues.

0.4 - A nice minimal version of the language. Should be possible to use for somewhat realistic projects.

1.0 - The completed version of the language with all planned features and extra nice ergonomics.

Unsorted Todo:s

Critical Bugs

0.3

References must keep track of their origin and prevent usage of them if the origin has been given away.

Currently it's possible to set a ref so it points to a value in a more short-lived scope, leads to 'stack-use-after-scope' error in clang-sanitizer.

Recursive functions inside modules are broken.

Big Language Features

1.0

Lambdas

Tagged unions (also known as "sum types" or "enums")

Stack allocated Array with an explicit size.

Tests to write

Tests that make sure all the various type errors are triggered.

Smaller Language Features ("niceties")

0.4

Prevent usage of 'private' functions from outside their module.

Type annotations should affect the type, not just check it.

Remove StringCopy.append, use String.append in all those cases.

1.0

Returning refs in functions should be possible to prove safe in some cases, if origin or ref is stored during memory management pass. Requires lifetimes or similar.

Array.copy should just do a memcopy for primitive/plain types. Select most concrete version of 'copy'?

A way of telling Carp if an external type is primitive (and thus freely copy:able) or not and must be borrowed.

Macros for generating 'read' functions to read objects back into memory from string representation.

Kind-checking for types (make sure the type variables match, etc).

Allow unification of generic struct '(t a)' with concrete struct, i.e. (Array Int).

Enable errors when instantiating deps. Requires that the deps function for templates should return an Either.

Macro System

1.0

Quasiquote

Splicing in macros

Pattern matching on arguments in macros?

Some lists and similar things generated by built in dynamic functions like 'cons' etc don't create proper Info for their XObjs?

Tooling

0.4

The error reporting in Eval is a mess, must make it possible to return errors with correct location for all kinds of errors.

Errors in macros should present the code location of both the macro and of the code that uses of it.

Flycheck hangs and eats all resources sometimes. One ugly solution would be to have a timer that kills the process after a certain time when running with –check

Can't test things like 'examples/resolve.carp' because test output (= the error message) is dependent on local folder structure.

1.0

Show "call stack" when getting an error during concretization.

Make the flags sent to the compiler be saved into different groups depending on actual compiler.

Project templates.

Somehow make it possible to enter ":t foo" at the REPL (can't be done now because each atom is evaluated separately)

Preserve whitespace to allow saving forms back to disk.

Refactorings at the REPL. Rename, extract function, add/remove parameter?

Emacs-mode: Make foreach and deftype indent correctly.

Emacs-mode: Make foreach, and*, not*, etc. into keywords (highlight them).

A way to assert compiler errors in tests.

Code generation

[1.X] LLVM backend

[?] Emit #LINE macros in the generated C code?

Libraries

Make Vector generic

Threading

Game development libraries with switchable backends

Documentation

Document all core functions

Write a guide to how the compiler internals work

Improve the Memory.md docs

Ugliness

Would be nice if Info from deftypes propagated to the templates for source location of their member functions.

Language Design Considerations

How to handle heap allocated values? Box type with reference count?

Fixed-size stack allocated arrays would be useful (also as members of structs)

Macros in modules must be qualified right now, is that a good long-term solution or should there be a 'use' for dynamic code?

Allow use of 'the' as a wrapper when defining a variable or function, i.e. (the (Fn [Int] Int) (defn [x] x))?

Being able to use 'the' in function parameter declarations, i.e. (defn f [(the Int x)] x) to enforce a type?

Distinguish immutable/mutable refs?

Reintroduce the p-string patch but with support for embedded string literals?

Rename deftype to defstruct?

Syntax for pointer type, perhaps "^"?

Defining a function like 'add-ref' (see the numeric modules), refering to '' does not resolve to '' inside the module, which gives the function an overly generic type.

Notes

Should depsForCopyFunc and depsForDeleteFunc really be needed in Array templates, they should instantiate automatically when used?

Hard to test '(reload)' since it will ignore currently loaded files