Work In Progress

The compiler contains some code for the following features, which are not yet completed, but which we hope to complete at some time in the future:

- There is a `--target il' option, which generates MSIL code for Microsoft's new .NET Common Language Runtime. We're still working on this.
- Thread-safe engine (the `.par' grades).
- Independent AND-parallelism (the `&' parallel conjunction operator). See Tom Conway's PhD thesis.
- We have incomplete support for a new, more expressive design for representing information about type classes and type class instances at runtime. When complete, the new design would allow runtime tests of type class membership, it would allow the tabling of predicates with type class constraints, and it would allow the debugger to print type_class_infos.
- We have added support for dynamic link libraries (DLLs) on Windows. This is not yet enabled by default because it has not yet been tested properly.
- There is a new garbage collector that does accurate garbage collection (hlc.agc grade). See the comments in compiler/ml_elim_nested.m and the paper on our web page for more details.
- There is a `--generate-bytecode' option, for a new back-end that generates bytecode. The bytecode generator is basically complete, but we don't have a bytecode interpreter.

We also have some code that goes at least some part of the way towards implementing the features below. However, for these features, the code has not yet been committed and thus is not part of the standard distribution.

- A new implementation of the mode system using constraints. This is on the "mode-constraints" branch of our CVS repository.
- Support for aliasing in the mode system. This is on the "alias" branch of our CVS repository.
- Support for automatic structure reuse (reusing old data structures that are no longer live, rather than allocating new memory on the heap) and compile time garbage collection This is on the "reuse" branch of our CVS repository.
- Better support for inter-module analysis and optimization.

## Work Not In Progress

The compiler also contains some code for the following features, but work on them has stopped, since finishing them off would be quite a bit more work, and our current priorities lie elsewhere. Still, these could make interesting and worthwhile projects if someone has the time for it.

- A SOAP interface.
- A bytecode interpreter, for use with the `--generate-bytecode' option.
- Sequence quantification (see the description from the meeting minutes).

Last update was $Date: 2010-07-13 05:48:04 $ by $Author: juliensf $@cs.mu.oz.au.