Current TODO list

Will any of the following ever get done? Who knows? Each list is ordered soonest-first (roughly), and some entries have a rough timetable for their completion.

Python Modules, Extensions, and Whatnot

• XML parsing stuff (currently being implemented in the XML-SIG)
• Upgrade the re module to use PCRE 2.00.
• Unicode support for Python (currently being debated in the String-SIG)
• Merge my Unix code with Sam Rushing's mmap module, and release the bloody thing!
• Fix gmpmodule.c to marshal identically to Python's existing long integers.
• Resume playing with the ncurses-capable cursesmodule.
• Change SSLeay to be just a SWIGged module. (Someone in the UK is working on this, and someone in the US may be able to release code that does the whole thing.)
• More cursesmodule demos? Maybe some sort of nifty regex matching demo, that shows you what the engine is doing.
• Python front-end for Mozilla, that would let you prototype new front-ends in Python. XPCOM support for Python would be a start.
• Older database modules, like the mSQL module, should be rewritten to be compliant with the DB-API.
• Write a Python interface to the substructure of an NFS server, as Tom Lord once suggested long ago.

XML-SIG

• XML HOWTO
• xml.marshal module
• xmllib.py could use improved error messages, that give the name of the unclosed element or illegal entity.
• Dave Winer's XML-HTTP-RPC proposal

PCRE

• Write a benchmark program (in C).
• All the things listed on my String-SIG page

Python core things

• A configure script that takes Modules/Setup.in and produces a Setup file that has all the features supported by your system. I wrote a prototype called Setup.py and posted it to comp.lang.python, but there seemed to be little interest.
• httplib improvements: more HTTP/1.1 support (particularly for byte ranges and persistent connections). Jeremy Hylton has some code for it in a temporary directory on www.python.org. Quote from GvR: "If I had the time, I would probably move Jeremy's code to a new module and change the httplib.HTTP class so that it can be used as a base class for Jeremy's Connection class."
• whatswrong.py (suggested by Fredrik Lundh)
• Someone should write a standard file layout for the binary distributions on www.python.org.
• Better error messages using PyErr_Format(); it would be worth going through all the source code looking for messages that could be improved.
• test_posixfile.py
• Look into whrandom's randomness; the first few numbers generated seem to be poorly distributed.
• Can the parser's speed be improved?

PIL Projects

• Implement NIST's IHEAD format, the digital camera CAM format (cam2jpeg)

Suggestions for the documentation

I'm not doing all (or even most) of the following, but they've been suggested.

• Document PyParse_TupleAndKeywords()
• A collection of HOWTOs. CGI; using profile.py; using Pipermail; socket programming & inter-process communication in general; regex-to-re conversion (add \<, \b differences); PythonWin; NumPy; GUI development using toolkits such as Gtk, Qt, or Tkinter; using the Python debugger; SGML/XML processing in Python; benchmarking; threaded programming; other topics?
• Note from someone about the LibRef: calling __dict__ readonly is a massive piece of misinformation, especially when the docs immediately show it being modified. . . (Technically incorrect--__dict__ returns a mutable object, but you can't say i.__dict__={} )
• Improve the index--look for references on making good book indices. Gabriel Berriz had many excellent suggestions about this, and wrote "A global master index of all identifiers and macros, with descriptions, references to point of definition, and scope, would kick some serious butt, but may require some serious sweat..."
• Text at the start of the index encouraging the user to report index flaws to some e-mail address

Far-out stuff that will never, ever get done

• Resume working on the OCR application.
• The Python/PGP interface. It's probably a better course to just SWIG PGPlib instead of trying to implement it in Python. On the other hand, implementing it in Python is much more fun...
• You know, Python could use a slim, clean book similar in style to K&R. (David Beazley seems to be working on this.)
• A Bard's Tale clone--I loved this game on my 64, and it would be nice to have a Linux version. It would also be interesting to try writing a game mostly in Python, with custom extensions to handle time-critical things like animation and music. An XML DTD for encoding scenarios would be neat. (Happily, in April 1999 someone started a PyRPG project to do this.)
• An X11 golf game using Tkinter or GTk.

Things I should add to my web pages

• Need to come up with more colour schemes: I have mauve, gold, and blue. Green, grey, and dark blue would be good additions.
• Write a script to make my 200K quotation file available in smaller chunks.
• Add more 'back-to' links where they're missing.
• Davies: List audiobooks of Davies works.
• Davies: Add document about "which book should you read first?"
• Davies: Move biographical material onto a page of its own.
• Davies: Add a page about the Golden Ass.
• Add date-based anchors to the book journal, and a script to add the most recent 3-4 books to the top page.

CDs to buy

• Meredith Monk (various)
• Dee Custerson (harpist & folk singer)
• More Kate Price
• Used CDs: Kate Bush, Suzanna Vega, Loreena McKennitt