TODO

                ************************************************
                ***  This file is a TODO. It is thus kinda   ***
                ***  outdated. You know the story, right?    ***
                ************************************************




###
### Ongoing stuff
###

Document the fact that gras processes display the backtrace on sigusr and sigint
Document host module

/* FIXME: better place? */
int vasprintf  (char **ptr, const char *fmt, va_list ap);
char *bprintf(const char*fmt, ...) _XBT_GNUC_PRINTF(1,2);


gras_socket_close should be blocking until all the data sent have been
received by the other side (implemented with an ACK mechanism).

###
### Planned
###

*
* Infrastructure
****************

[build chain]
  * 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
*****

[errors/exception]
  * Better split casual errors from programming errors.
    The first ones should be reported 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
  * 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
  * 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]  
  * 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 incoming 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.
  * 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 (gras_datatype_copy can be usefull, but only if
      main type is already defined)
    - 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; } 

[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)?
  
[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]
  * log control, management, dynamic token ring
  * a way using SSH to ask a remote host to open a socket back on me