4 ** non-x86 ports now pass irrat.pure.lisp
5 ** ports with less than 256Mb of heap (sparc, ppc and mips)
6 now don't fail bit-vector.impure-cload.lisp
7 * faster bootstrapping (both make.sh and slam.sh)
8 ** added mechanisms for automatically finding dead code, and
9 used them to remove dead code
10 ** moved stuff from warm init into cold init where possible
11 (so that slam.sh will run faster and also just because
12 ideally everything would be in cold init)
13 ** profiled and tweaked
14 * fixed (TRACE :REPORT PROFILE ...) interface to profiling
15 * more EVAL/EVAL-WHEN/%COMPILE/DEFUN/DEFSTRUCT cleanup:
16 ** made %COMPILE understand magicality of DEFUN FOO
17 w.r.t. e.g. preexisting inlineness of FOO
18 ** used %COMPILE where COMPILE-TOP-LEVEL used to be used
19 ** removed now-redundant COMPILE-TOP-LEVEL and
20 FUNCTIONAL-KIND=:TOP-LEVEL stuff from the compiler
21 ** (ideally, but perhaps too hard, given what I've discovered
22 about the godawful internals of function debug names):
23 made FUNCTION-NAME logic work on closures, so that
24 various public functions like CL:PACKAGEP which
25 are now implemented as closures (because
26 they're structure slot accessors) won't be so
28 * outstanding embarrassments
29 ** :IGNORE-ERRORS-P cruft in stems-and-flags.lisp-expr. (It's
30 reasonable to support this as a crutch when initially
31 bootstrapping from balky xc hosts with their own
32 idiosyncratic ideas of what merits FAILURE-P, but it's
33 embarrassing to have to use it when bootstrapping
35 * fixups now feasible because of pre7 changes
36 ** ANSIfied DECLAIM INLINE stuff (deprecating MAYBE-INLINE,
37 including e.g. on the man page)
38 * miscellaneous simple refactoring
40 ** renamed %PRIMITIVE to %VOP
41 ** A few hundred things named FN and FCN should be
42 named FUN (but maybe not while dan_b is
43 working on a threads branch and drichards is
44 working on a Windows port).
45 * These days ANSI C has inline functions, so..
46 ** redid many cpp macros as inline functions:
47 HeaderValue, Pointerp, CEILING, ALIGNED_SIZE,
48 GET_FREE_POINTER, SET_FREE_POINTER,
49 GET_GC_TRIGGER, SET_GC_TRIGGER, GetBSP, SetBSP,
50 os_trunc_foo(), os_round_up_foo()
51 ** removed various avoid-evaluating-C-macro-arg-twice
53 * Either get rid of or at least rework the fdefinition/encapsulation
54 system so that (SYMBOL-FUNCTION 'FOO) is identically equal to
56 =======================================================================
59 [ note: much of the below refers to preparation for merging SB-PCL:FOO
60 and CL:FOO. However, it turned out to be surprisingly
61 straightforward to do this notional end goal without doing many of
62 the preparatory operations. That doesn't mean that plenty of the
63 goals below aren't worthwhile, but the motivation is somewhat
66 * refactored in preparation for moving CLOS into cold init and merging
67 SB-PCL:FOO with CL:FOO (for FOO=CLASS, FOO=CLASS-OF, etc.)
68 ** systematized support for MOP (more regression tests, maybe)
69 to try to make sure things don't get mislaid in the
70 upcoming CLOS restructuring
71 ** extracted type system (and maybe CLASSOIDs) from SB-KERNEL
72 into new SB-TYPE package
73 ** reimplemented GENERIC-FUNCTION as a primitive object (or
74 maybe made SB-MOP:FUNCALLABLE-STANDARD-OBJECT the
75 primitive object, and then let GENERIC-FUNCTIONs
76 inherit from that) instead of structures with
77 :ALTERNATE-METACLASS and funcallableness. Now
78 FUNCALLABLE-INSTANCE can go away. (And now the new
79 funcallable primitive objects need to go into
80 collections like *FUN-HEADER-WIDETAGS* where
81 FUNCALLABLE-INSTANCE objects used to be.)
82 ** reimplemented CONDITIONs as primitive objects instead of
83 structures with :ALTERNATE-METACLASS. Now (between
84 this and the change to GENERIC-FUNCTIONs)
85 DEFSTRUCT :ALTERNATE-METACLASS can go away.
86 ** (maybe) Now INSTANCE_POINTER_LOWTAG can become just
87 STRUCTURE_POINTER_LOWTAG, and the concept of
88 SB-KERNEL:INSTANCE (including INSTANCEP,
89 (SPECIFIER-TYPE 'INSTANCE), etc.) can go away.
90 * moved CLOS into cold init, in order to allow CLOS to be used in the
91 implementation of the core system (e.g. the type system and the
92 compiler) and in order to support merger of CL:CLASS with
94 * (maybe) eliminated warm init altogether in favor of cold init
95 * (maybe, especially if warm init can be eliminated) rationalized
96 the build process, fixing miscellaneous pre-0.5.0 stuff that's
97 transparently not the right thing
98 ** removed separate build directories, now just building in
99 place with .sbclcoldfasl extensions
100 * (maybe) more refactoring in preparation for merging SB-PCL:FOO
101 into CL:FOO: reimplemented type system OO dispatch
102 (!DEFINE-TYPE-METHOD, etc.) in terms of CLOS OO dispatch
103 * added some automatic tests for basic binary compatibility, in hopes
104 that it might be practical to maintain binary compatibility
105 between minor maintenance releases on the stable branch (but no
106 promises, sorry, since I've never tried to do this before, and
107 have no idea how much of a pain this'll be)
108 ========================================================================
109 for 1.0 (fixes of lower priority which I'd nonetheless be embarrassed
110 to leave unfixed in 1.0):
111 * all too many BUGS entries and FIXMEs
112 =======================================================================
113 other priorities, no particular time:
115 * bug fixes, especially really annoying bugs (ANSI or not) and any
116 ANSI bugs (i.e. not just bugs in extras like the debugger or
117 "declarations are assertions", but violations of the standard)
118 * better communication with the outside world (scratching WHN's
119 personal itch): I don't want socket-level stuff so much as I
120 want RPC-level or higher (CORBA?) interfaces and (possibly
121 through RPC or CORBA) GUI support
122 =======================================================================
123 important but out of scope (for WHN, anyway: Patches from other people
124 are still welcome!) until after 1.0:
126 * sadly deteriorated support for ANSI-style block compilation
127 (static linking of DEFUNs within a single file or
128 WITH-COMPILATION-UNIT)
129 * various GC issues (exuberant cut-and-paste coding,
130 possibly dangerously over-conservative handling
131 of neighbors of function objects, general GC efficiency)
132 * package issues other than SB!TYPE, SB!MOP, and dead exported
134 * Any systematic effort to fix compiler consistency checks is
135 out of scope. (However, it still might be possible to
136 determine that some or all of them are hopelessly stale
138 =======================================================================
139 other known issues with no particular target date:
141 bugs listed on the man page
143 hundreds of FIXME notes in the sources from WHN
145 various other unfinished business from CMU CL and before, marked with
146 "XX" or "XXX" or "###" or "***" or "???" or "pfw" or "@@@@" or "zzzzz"
147 or probably also other codes that I haven't noticed or have forgotten.
149 (Things marked as KLUDGE are in general things which are ugly or
150 confusing, but that, for whatever reason, may stay that way
152 =======================================================================
153 "There's nothing an agnostic can't do as long as he doesn't know
154 whether he believes in anything or not."
157 "God grant me serenity to accept the code I cannot change, courage to
158 change the code I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
161 "Accumulation of half-understood design decisions eventually chokes a
162 program as a water weed chokes a canal. By refactoring you can ensure
163 that your full understanding of how the program should be designed is
164 always reflected in the program. As a water weed quickly spreads its
165 tendrils, partially understood design decisions quickly spread their
166 effects throughout your program. No one or two or even ten individual
167 actions will be enough to eradicate the problem."
168 -- Martin Fowler, in _Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing
171 "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."