scsh-0.6/doc/todo.txt

--*- Mode: Indented-text; -*-

Scheme 48: list of bugs and things to do.
Last update by RAK on 28 April 1998.

Run-time system bugs:
    Shadowing can fail sometimes for macro-referenced variables.  E.g.
      the following sequence will lose if entered interactively as
      three separate forms:
        (define (foo x) `(a ,x))
	(define cons list)
	(foo 1) => (a (1 ()))

Programming environment:
    Fuller on-line documentation.
    Error recovery.  Can do better than ,proceed.  LOAD should set up
      restart continuations.
    Types in scheme-interface (and elsewhere) aren't as tight as they
      could be.
    LET continuation "pessimization" to retain the environment longer.
    Have the disassembler display local variable names.
    This ought to be recoverable, but isn't always:
	> (let loop ((x '())) (loop (cons 3 x)))
	not enough room in heap for stack
    The get-cont-from-heap instruction should have an exception
      discloser that indicates the actual error (returning a
      non-fixnum from application top level).
    Separate compilation (compile a module, writing object code to a
      file).  (Rudiments in misc/separate.scm)
    Semicolon comments don't quite work after commands (extra newline
      required).
    Command (and procedure) to change current directory.
    Some procedure in EXEC to take the place of ## in moving values from
      one package to another: (transport <from-package> <exp> <to-package>
      [<id>]), and/or have eval etc. commands return the value
    Batch mode should write error messages to (error-output).

Performance:
    Generational GC.
    More compact representation for debugging data?
    Leaf procedure compilation (RK's rts/no-leaf-env.scm): if no
      continuations or lambdas, skip the make-env and access locals
      using stack-ref.  Expected to gain about 6% in speed.
    Optimize loops somehow (maybe using call-template opcode and/or
      opportunistic compilation).
    The CAML light implementation has good documentation and patches
      for optimizing the interpreter's switch (*pc++); perhaps we
      could lift some of it.  (Range check isn't necessary.)
    Floating point support in VM.
    Bignum support in VM: use MIT Scheme bignums or GNU Multiple
      Precision Arithmetic Library (Torbjorn Granlund <tege@sics.se>).
    Faster bignum printer (e.g. the one Richard wrote - but it would be
      nice if it were an option tied to bignums, not built in to the
      initial image).
    Ratnum multiplication and division might be made more efficient by
      taking cross-GCD's.
    Native code compiler...

Big Scheme bugs / features:
    It would be nice to be able to simulate control-C interrupts on
      a port other than the initial input port - e.g., on a socket.
      This would require creating a new thread to act as a front end.
      The new thread would read characters eagerly, buffering
      everything except control-C's for the thread that is doing the
      real work, and converting control-C's into interrupts.
    How about deleting entries from tables?
    RPC.
    Add call/gcc (invokes the Gnu C compiler).

Module system bugs:
    ,untrace should undefine as well if the variable wasn't bound
      before.
    Compound signatures don't get updated when a component signature
      changes.  They contain a list of signatures with no reinitialization
      thunk a la structures and packages.

Module system features:
    Check for name conflicts between opened structures.
    Implement interface subtraction as a way of dealing with such
      conflicts: (WITHOUT (<name> ...) <interface>)
    Check for cycles in structure inheritance.
    An ,access command, similar to ,open.
    Deal with package system state better (for linker).  Maybe each
      package should point to a data structure containing
      *location-uid*, location-name-table, *package-uid*,
      package-name-table, and perhaps the compiler-state as well (see
      segment.scm).

VM:
    Heaps that can grow larger.
    Add a test to configure.in that can determine whether ld -A works.
      If both it and dlopen() work, then both kinds of dynamic loading
      should be made available.
    Merge in Olin's changes and extensions (command line processing,
      the #! syntax for scripts, external function call, etc.).
    Interrupt while writing out image causes an exit.  [Fixed?]
    A jump-back instruction?  Might be easier to use than call-template.
    Scrutinize all VM fatal errors to see if any can be recovered
      from.  E.g. "out of ports" shouldn't cause a VM halt, it should
      just cause open-port to return #f or an error code.  [Fixed?]
    Get VM interp.scm-without-gc.scm working again.

Documentation:
    Describe (optimize auto-integrate).
    How to use the static linker.
    How initial.image and scheme48.image get built, really.
    Techniques for debugging the runtime system (debug/for-debugging.scm).

Cleanup:
  VM:
    Rename "unassigned" to "uninitialized"?  Or phase it out entirely.
    In unix.c, use getrusage(), when available, to get run time.
  Run-time / features / development environment:
    A DIVIDE procedure (maybe an instruction as well) that returns two
      values.
    Figure out how to merge the two type systems (META-METHODS and
      META-TYPES).  The generic function system could make use of the
      SUBTYPE? and INTERSECT? predicates.
    Correct floating point, esp. reading and printing.  And
      (= 1/3 (/ 1. 3.)) returns #t, but ought to return #f.
    Parameterize over file name syntax somehow.  Currently
      big/filename.scm assumes Unix (cf. DIRECTORY-COMPONENT-SEPARATOR,
      FILE-NAME-PREFERRED-CASE).  Perhaps there should be VM support for
      this.
    Make sure that the disassembler and assembler are inverses of one
      another.
    Disassembler should generate S-expression first, and then print
      it independently.
    Combine conditions, signals, and handle into a single structure?
    Figure out a better way to implement ##.
    Be consistent about "filename" versus "file-name".
  Compiler / linker / module system:
    The "reflective tower" isn't really a reflective tower, it's a
      syntactic tower.  Rename it.
    The scanner (file loader) should operate on streams, not lists.
      This would result in more uniform and flexible internal
      protocols for reading files, scanning for DEFINEs, compiling,
      and running - passes could be interleaved or separated easily.
    Flush link/data.scm.  Linker should instead open the VM module
      that includes vm/data.scm.
    Flush (optimize ...) clause in DEFINE-STRUCTURE in favor of
      optimizer argument to SCAN-STRUCTURES.
    Vector patterns and templates ought to be supported in
      SYNTAX-RULES.
    The DEFINE-INTERFACE forms should contain types for every exported
      variable; the code in cprim.scm (and recon.scm?) shouldn't have
      to worry about setting up types.
    Add ENVIRONMENT-DEFINED? ?
    Make USUAL-TRANSFORM return a transform?
    Add enough to the node signature to make it usable on its own?
    make-c-header-file should put definitions for the interrupt
      enumeration into scheme48.h, and unix.c et al should use them.
    Flatloading and loading are very different operations, so FLATLOAD
      shouldn't do SET-PACKAGE-LOADED?!; instead it should maintain its
      own list of flatloaded packages (in a global variable, say).
  Etc:
    Start using a source control system (like rcs).
    There ought to be a sanity check to ensure that the size of the
      area as computed by static.scm agrees with the size as computed
      by C's sizeof() operator.

What should (syntax-rules (x) ((foo ?body) (let ((x 1)) ?body))) do?


To: jar@cs.cornell.edu
Subject: Not a bug this time. :-)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 19:13:37 -0500
From: Paul Stodghill <stodghil@cs.cornell.edu>

The result of ,expand can be confusing. In particular, it doesn't
distinguish between different identifiers that have the same name.

For instance, in the example below, it would be more useful if the result
of the ,expand was something like,

	'((lambda (.x.1) (set! x (- .x.1))) x)

Welcome to Scheme 48 0.31 (made by jar on Sun Feb 13 18:33:57 EST 1994).
Copyright (c) 1993, 1994 by Richard Kelsey and Jonathan Rees.
Please report bugs to scheme-48-bugs@altdorf.ai.mit.edu.
Type ,? (comma question-mark) for help.
> (define-syntax foo
    (syntax-rules ()
      ((foo var) ((lambda (x) (set! var (- x))) var))))
> (define x 1)
> ,expand (foo x)
'((lambda (x) (set! x (- x))) x)
> 



Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 18:33:30 HKT
From: shivers@csd.hku.hk
To: kelsey@flora.ccs.neu.edu
Cc: jar@cs.cornell.edu
Subject: Scheme 48

...
All true.  My major motivation was portability. I also found the module system
to be a big win. Other things that influenced me were (1) elegance and
modularity -- I felt I could comprehend and mung the system as needed (2)
reasonable efficiency and small size and (3) real, full R4RS+ support (most
small systems do it partly).

Actually, I wouldn't say the programming environment is particularly
exceptional, unless you count the module system.

A small thing lacking in other Schemes that really reduced my debug times: the
loader would complain about undefined free var refs in my code. This
frequently picked out variable spelling errors, inconsistent name linkages,
and forgotten procedure defs. Not a big thing, but really effective.

Another win was simply having the implementors around for detailed
explanations and support.

Problems I had with S48: 
- Inability to mess with the VM, as it is written in a language that can
  be compiled by only 1 person in the world.

- The foreign-function support was quite limited, and the foreign-data support
  was basically non-existent. Exporting gc'd data to C, gc'ing data allocated
  in C, hooks into the GC, importing C data into Scheme -- no support.  Elk
  handles this better, as that is critical to the type of applications at
  which elk is targeted.

  I fixed some of this myself -- helped by your general, portable low-level ff
  interface, which was well-designed in terms of those goals -- but I couldn't
  do much about foreign-data support.

- No support currently for linking static heap data into a text-pages
  area to reduce gc copying and shrink the dynamic heap.

- The module system was frequently frustrating. The non-uniform , command 
  language, bugs, the restrictions of living with a module system,
  being blocked from accessing primitives whose bindings had been
  gc'd away at link time, and awkwardnesses in the user interface really
  slowed me down.

  The module system was also a great help; these are simply the problems
  of life with an experimental system, as opposed to a polished final
  product.

[But] all in all, S48 was the best choice I could have made.