hledger/NOTES

hledger project notes & ideas

"...simplicity of design was the most essential, guiding principle.
Clarity of concepts, economy of features, efficiency and reliability of
implementations were its consequences." --Niklaus Wirth

* to do
** TODO bugs/cleanup
*** no total in filtered balance report
*** register pat doesn't filter transactions
*** two acct patterns broken
*** better encapsulation/layering
**** above/below cacheLedger ?
** ledger features
*** handle arbitrary precision accurately
*** handle non-convertible currencies
*** handle time logs
**** fix timelog parser
**** handle time amounts
     switch to Data.Time.*
      fix errors
       - read seconds to pico
       try System.Time ?
*** - account/description patterns
*** -p period expressions
*** !include
*** -j and -J graph data output
*** more speed
*** full per-currency precision & thousands separator handling
*** ledger 3-style elision
*** -d display expressions
*** read gnucash files
*** other ledger 3 features
*** single space before currency can parse as an auto transaction
** new features
*** alternate timelog format
*** infer clock-out
*** graph automation
*** entry and smart data entry
*** incorporate timeclock features
*** better layout
** testing
*** better use of quickcheck/smallcheck
     http://blog.codersbase.com/2006/09/01/simple-unit-testing-in-haskell/
*** ledger compatibility tests
** documentation
*** literate manual
*** better use of haddock
*** differences/issues
**** ledger does not support -f- (without space)
**** ledger shows description comments as part of description, we do the same
**** ledger does not sort register by date
**** ledger can show wrong output due to thousands separators
**** ledger balance with an account pattern shows a redundant total
**** hledger does not choose symbol separation, thousands separators, and precision based on first entry of each currency
     (currently: chooses precision for all currencies based on first entry)
**** hledger does not parse automated/periodic entries except at start of file
* things I want to know
** time
where have I been spending my time in recent weeks ?
where have I spent my time today ?
what is my status wrt spending plan for this week/month/year ?
what is my current status wrt time spending goals ?
** money
where have I been spending my money ?
what is my status wrt spending plan for this week/month/year ?
what is my current status wrt spending/savings goals ?
what are all my current balances ?
what does my balance history look like ?
what does my balance future look like ?
are there any cashflow, tax, budgetary problems looming ?

* misc
** compare other languages! a parser generator and decent speed is required
*** python: http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/ZestyParser, pysec, pyparsing
*** squeak: LanguageGame, T-Gen, SmaCC
*** lisp: ?
*** ruby: too slow (?)

** data representation
*** http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0327/
*** http://www.n-heptane.com/nhlab/repos/Decimal/
*** http://www.n-heptane.com/nhlab/repos/Decimal/Money.hs
*** http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/