-*
-* Infrastructure
-****************
-
-[autoconf]
- * Check the gcc version on powerpc. We disabled -floop-optimize on powerpc,
- but versions above 3.4.0 should be ok.
- * check whether we have better than jmp_buf to implement exceptions, and
- use it (may need to generate a public .h, as glib does)
-
-*
-* XBT
-*****
-
-[doc]
- * graphic showing:
- (errors, logs ; dynars, dicts, hooks, pools; config, rrdb)
-
-[portability layer]
- * maybe a memory pool so that we can cleanly kill an actor
-
-[errors/exception]
- * Better split casual errors from programing errors.
- The first ones should be repported to the user, the second should kill
- the program (or, yet better, only the msg handler)
- * Allows the use of an error handler depending on the current module (ie,
- the same philosophy as log4c using GSL's error functions)
-
-[logs]
- * Hijack message from a given category to another for a while (to mask
- initializations, and more)
- * Allow each actor to have its own setting
- * a init/exit mecanism for logging appender
- * Several appenders; fix the setting stuff to change the appender
- * more logging appenders (take those from Ralf in l2)
-
-[modules]
- * Add configuration and dependencies to our module definition
- * allow to load them at runtime
- check in erlang how they upgrade them without downtime
-
-[other modules]
- * we may need a round-robin database module, and a statistical one
- * a hook module *may* help cleaning up some parts. Not sure yet.
- * Some of the datacontainer modules seem to overlap. Kill some of them?
- - replace fifo with dynars
- - replace set with SWAG
-
-*
-* GRAS
-******
-
-[doc]
- * implement the P2P protocols that macedon does. They constitute great
- examples, too
-
-[transport]
- * Spawn threads handling the communication
- - Data sending cannot be delegated if we want to be kept informed
- (*easily*) of errors here.
- - Actor execution flow shouldn't be interrupted
- - It should be allowed to access (both in read and write access)
- any data available (ie, referenced) from the actor without
- requesting to check for a condition before.
- (in other word, no mutex or assimilated)
- - I know that enforcing those rules prevent the implementation of
- really cleaver stuff. Keeping the stuff simple for the users is more
- important to me than allowing them to do cleaver tricks. Black magic
- should be done *within* gras to reach a good performance level.
-
- - Data receiving can be delegated (and should)
- The first step here is a "simple" mailbox mecanism, with a fifo of
- messages protected by semaphore.
- The rest is rather straightforward too.
-
- * use poll(2) instead of select(2) when available. (first need to check
- the advantage of doing so ;)
-
- Another idea we spoke about was to simulate this feature with a bunch of
- threads blocked in a read(1) on each incomming socket. The latency is
- reduced by the cost of a syscall, but the more I think about it, the
- less I find the idea adapted to our context.
-
- * timeout the send/recv too (hard to do in RL)
- * Adaptative timeout
- * multiplex on incoming SOAP over HTTP (once datadesc can deal with it)
-
- * The module syntax/API is too complex.
- - Everybody opens a server socket (or almost), and nobody open two of
- them. This should be done automatically without user intervention.
- - I'd like to offer the possibility to speak to someone, not to speak on
- a socket. Users shouldn't care about such technical details.
- - the idea of host_cookie in NWS seem to match my needs, but we still
- need a proper name ;)
- - this would allow to exchange a "socket" between peer :)
- - the creation needs to identify the peer actor within the process
-
- * when a send failed because the socket was closed on the other side,
- try to reopen it seamlessly. Needs exceptions or another way to
- differentiate between the several system_error.
- * cache accepted sockets and close the old ones after a while.
- Depends on the previous item; difficult to achieve with firewalls
-
-[datadesc]
- * Add a XML wire protocol alongside to the binary one (for SOAP/HTTP)
- * cbps:
- - Error handling
- - Regression tests
- * Inter-arch conversions
- - Port to ARM
- - Convert in the same buffer when size increase
- - Exchange (on net) structures in one shoot when possible.
- - Port to really exotic platforms (Cray is not IEEE ;)
- * datadesc_set_cste: give the value by default when receiving.
- - It's not transfered anymore, which is good for functions pointer.
- * Parsing macro
- - Cleanup the code (bison?)
- - Factorize code in union/struct field adding
- - Handle typedefs (needs love from DataDesc/)
- - Handle unions with annotate
- - Handle enum
- - Handle long long and long double
- - Forbid "char", allow "signed char" and "unsigned char", or user code won't be
- portable to ARM, at least.
- - Handle struct/union/enum embeeded within another container
- (needs modifications in DataDesc, too)
-
- - Check short a, b;
- - Check short ***
- - Check struct { struct { int a } b; }
-
- * gras_datadesc_import_nws?
-
-[Messaging]
- * Other message types than oneway & RPC are possible:
- - forwarding request, group communication
- * Message priority
- * Message forwarding
- * Group communication
- * Message declarations in a tree manner (such as log channels)?
-
-[GRASPE] (platform expender)
- * Tool to visualize/deploy and manage in RL
- * pull method of source diffusion in graspe-slave
-
-[Actors] (parallelism in GRAS)
- * An actor is a user process.
- It has a highly sequential control flow from its birth until its death.
- The timers won't stop the current execution to branch elsewhere, they
- will be delayed until the actor is ready to listen. Likewise, no signal
- delivery. The goal is to KISS for users.
- * You can fork a new actor, even on remote hosts.
- * They are implemented as threads in RL, but this is still a distributed
- memory *model*. If you want to share data with another actor, send it
- using the message interface to explicit who's responsible of this data.
- * data exchange between actors placed within the same UNIX process is
- *implemented* by memcopy, but that's an implementation detail.
-
-[Other, more general issues]
- * watchdog in RL (ie, while (1) { fork; exec the child, wait in father })
- * Allow [homogeneous] dico to be sent
- * Make GRAS thread safe by mutexing what needs to be
-
-*
-* AMOK
-******
-
-[bandwidth]
- * add a version guessing the appropriate datasizes automatically
-[other modules]
- * provide a way to retrieve the host load as in NWS
- * log control, management, dynamic token ring
- * a way using SSH to ask a remote host to open a socket back on me
-