Future Work

Grand plans, hopes and dreams.

• What Platform?

  Although Python has provided a great launch pad for Logix, we may switch to another platform at some point. Efficiency and security are two areas that are somewhat lacking with a Python foundation.

  What are the alternatives? Maybe Mono, maybe Parrot, maybe C--, maybe LLVM...

• Macro Browser

  Any language with a macro facility should provide some tool support to help with debugging. A browser that allows the code to be viewed before and after debugging would be very beneficial.

• Syntax aware editor

  Syntax highlighting and even syntax error reporting in the editor are becoming standard. When the syntax is extensible however, current approaches (e.g. syntax definition files) are inadequate. What is needed is an editor that has the logix parser built in, and can provide syntax-aware features even as the syntax changes.

• Improve Parsing Speed

  The existing parser is way too slow. At some point it will be ported to a more optimized language. C? C#?

Known issues with Logix that need fixing. Many of these issues are already being addressed - at least at the design stage. There are many minor issues that are not mentioned here. This is just intended to give an overview of changes that are coming.

• Pretty printing

  To complement the ability to parse text into code-data, a pretty-printer capable of writing code-data back as text is required. Ideally we will maintain meta-data about the layout of code, allowing convenient editing of structures both by hand and programmatically.

• Names not numbers for operator binding

  Maintaining a large set of numeric binding-levels is painful. A better design would eliminate names. For example "binds tighter than X and looser than Y".

• Macro debugging

  Better support is needed for debugging macro code. E.g. improved error reporting and post-mortem debugging.

• Code Generation

  The current byte-code compiler generates some pretty inefficient code in places. Needs improving.

• Re-compilation of macros

  If a macro definition changes, each module that uses the macro needs to be re-compiled. A convenient facility for tracking dependencies and performing the recompilation would be very useful.

Future improvements to the currently available Logix languages.

• Logix-Test

  The literate testing made possible by Python's doctest is very cool. Now that the free-text facilities are in place, Logix-Test should become a literate testing language.

• Standard Logix

  There are a great many features that we would like to see in Standard Logix. Some features that stand out are a pattern matching mechanism with variable binding, and generic functions.