[DotGNU]Todo's

[Peter Minten]

Hi,

since there seems to be a lot of people wanting to help I've put up an
incomplete list of what needs to be done (and the skills required). Note that
this is not official so things could change, especially the lexer/parser part
and the sound lib since these idea's are new (the compression lib idea is also
new but I don't expect much resistance here).

* Pnetlib

Description:

Pnetlib (the ECMA compatible C# base library) could always do with some more
developers. Tasks vary from coding tests to coding ECMA and .NET classes.

Skills required:

Very basic C# programming skills for the tests, basic C# programming skills for
coding ECMA and .NET classes.


* DotGNU-Base

Description:

DotGNU Base (the C# base library that contains DotGNU extensions to pnetlib) can
also use some help. Extending pnetlib classes and creating new ones is the task
here. There is no plan (actually there are a few targets but they are described
elsewhere) so contributors have to invent what is needed. 

Skills required:

Very basic C# skills are enough to get started here though there is some more
challenging work too.


* DG-Base Cryptography namespace

Description:

Pnetlib has (thanks to Rhys) a big cryptography namespace, unfortunately it's
very complicated. So we need to create wrapper classes in DotGNU-Base that ease
working with cryptography somewhat.

Skills required:

Good C# skills, this is a real challenge.


* DG-Base internet protocols

Description:

There is no support for common internet protocols such as STMP and NNTP in
pnetlib. But since DotGNU uses the internet rather heavily it would be nice to
have these things in the base library (even though they can be put into separate
libraries I suggest putting them in DotGNU-Base).

Skills required:

Basic C# skills.
Good knowledge of the protocol being implemented.

* dotgnu.pm

Description:

The DotGNU pattern matching library dotgnu.pm (a p/invoke interface to GNU libc
pattern matching functionality) needs to be adapted to the new build system and
naming conventions, also some debugging needs to be done. The biggest part of
the code is done already so there isn't need for much coding.

Skills required:

Very basic C# skills.
Basic shell skills.

* Lexer

Description:

In some situations it could be useful to have a lexer, so let's build one. Using
the stuff in dotgnu.pm this should be doable. This is not a library project like
the others but an executable project (that could offer a library though).

Skills required:

Reasonable C# skills.
Good understanding of how lexers work.


* Parser

Description:

It may be handy to have a parser that can be used with the lexer. This is like
the lexer an executable project.

Skills required:

Reasonable C# skills.
Good understanding of how parsers work.


* Sound library

At the moment we do not have even the most basic sound library, but a sound lib
would be nice. The sound lib should provide basic methods for sound generation
(low level), also if possible sound input (microphone) should be dealt with.

Skills required:

Good C# skills.
Good understanding of how low level sound works.


* Interpreted language IL interface

There was a discussion some time ago about using interpretted languages (Perl,
Python, Ruby, etc) with IL. The idea was to give the languages access to
functionality in IL code (for example using System.Console from Python). This is
really a very very tough job but worth it. This involves hacking the runtime
engine in pnet. My advice would be too start with Ruby since that one has a well
documented system for working with other languages.

Skills required:

Very good C skills.


* The C# book

We are currently writing a book about C# with a lot of chapter still unassigned.
If you don't feel like programming this can be your chance to help.

Skills required:

Basic writing skills.
Basic C# programming skills.


That's the list. I've made an index of which tasks belong with which projects:


Pnetlib: Portable.NET, admin Rhys Wheaterely

DotGNU-Base, DG-Base Cryptography, DG-Base internet protocols: DG-Base, admin
Peter Minten (me)

Lexer, Parser: DotGNU, these are standalone (and not yet approved) projects

Sound lib: DotGNU-Libs, admins Gopal V, Andrew Mitchell, Norbert Bollow, David
Sugar, Sidney Richards and Peter Minten.

IL language interface: it's not quite clear to what project this belongs,
probably Portable.NET .

C# book: C# book project, admins Gopal V and Peter Minten.


That's all folks.

Greetings,

Peter