8. Projects

Below is a list of improvements that we'd like to make to Algae. These items run the gamut from specific changes that would take only an hour or so to implement to vague, half-baked ideas that might take months. The items are in no particular order--we haven't identified priorities on most of them. We'd be very happy to have some help.

• The atan and atanh functions need improvement for complex arguments. They are based on simple formulas, but better algorithms are available that are faster, more accurate, and less prone to overflow.

• In the old days, getting Readline to do context-based completion (as on variable names) was nearly impossible. This may have changed - we ought to take a new look at it.

• The printf and related functions should be given additional capabilities to accept array arguments.

• I'm interested in exploring a better arrangement for the help system. Users should be able to tie in documentation for their own code.

• With the builtin function, Algae has dynamic linking capability. To make this useful, though, we have to document the interface and reorganize the header files.

• Wouldn't a GTK+ interface be nice?

• We need to complete the fread and fwrite implementation, and we'll probably want an fseek function as well.

• Symbolic debugging of Algae code would be very helpful.