-*- outline -*- This file describes all the things left to do on GNU Forth. The list is not complete, so you should add topics you miss or refine existing topics. If you are working on a topic, add your name to the right of the topic. If you have completed the work, remove the topic. This an emacs outline. Use '*' to create topics. *The Engine **measure the effect of some variations on different machines: direct/indirect, NEXT splitting, keeping the TOSses in variables **make it easy to put the right variation for each processor into the configuration. I.e., on installation all combinations of options should be measured and the fastest chosen. Knowing OS and architecture is not enough, the best otions depend more on the processor and the compiler version. * ANSI Forth Add the remaining words * Configuration We should have a config script so people don't need to edit the Makefile etc. *Run-time System **startup.fs takes too long to load. Make the compiler much faster (hardly possible) or provide some way to make an image that includes everything loaded by startup.fs **Gender-independent image file format and loader **Stack Checking using the MMU where the OS makes it possible. *Porting/Portability ** Machines/OSs VMS (VAX,AXP) DOS 8088 (16-bit or 32-bit? Note: there are no far pointers in gforth, so 16-bit means 64k max.) Windows OS/2 Mac Atari Amiga Use gcc-generated assembly on machines without gcc, but with processors supported by gcc *Foreign Language Interface If anybody wants to do this, mail me (anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at). I have given some thought to this and will type in my notes if you are interested. **C **FORTRAN **C++ *Windows and Graphics **Ask Brian Dunn and Mike Hore for their OS-independent interface **use the Foreign Language Interface to make X-Windows support *Program Development Environment Issues: Convenience, portability across plattforms, compatibility with existing tools (Emacs, F-PC) ** Decompiler and Debugger need debugging **readline Use the GNU readline package for convenient line editing ** emacs support can be improved **prefix file generator A tool for generating a prefix file for a program that explains in what way the program conforms to ANSI (i.e., which wordsets are used) and contains Forth definitions for the simple non-ANSI words. ** rightcase A tool that converts all uses of words in a source text to the exact case of the definition. There's something like this out there on the net (Joerg Plewe has posted a reference), but I think a program that wires itself into the compiler (like etags.fs) is harder to fool by search order tricks etc. *Object-Oriented Extensions John Hayes has a portable package *Documentation A texinfo file **glossaries of all wordsets. *** Inclusion of stack comments, glossary comments, and wordset comments in all source files. * Distribution and Announcements ** add copyright notices to all the source files ** add a package target to the Makefile ** Write articles for (general-purpose) magazines