Re: helpin out with beginner projects

[Zack Weinberg <zack at codesourcery dot com>]

On Thu, Sep 05, 2002 at 05:13:46PM -0500, William Tyler wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I would like to start working on some of the posted beginner projects that
> are on the website.

Great! Welcome aboard.

> Is there a list of work that is currently being done from this page that I
> can reference so that I am not duplication anyone elses efforts?

That page is way out of date.  Many of the projects have been completed.

I would suggest you pick one of these (in approximate order of
difficulty).  I am not aware of anyone working on them.

easy

 - Delete garbage.
 - Break up enormous source files.
 - Rename routines used by the debugging information generators, so
   they do not occupy the same namespace as routines intended to be
   used when debugging the compiler.
 - Break up enormous functions.

medium

 - Change magic numbers in machine descriptions to (define_constants)
   symbols. 
 - Convert text peepholes to RTL peepholes, and text prologues to RTL
   prologues.

hard

 - Convert all the configure scripts so they work with autoconf 2.5x.
   (Coordinate with Nathanael Nerode, who is working on getting the
   top level directory to use autoconf instead of Cygnus configure.)
 - Improve dwarf2out.c (start by making it represent C++ namespaces
   properly)
 - Find all the places that simplify RTL and make them use
   simplify-rtx.c.
 - Convert reorg.c to use the flow graph, or (better still) fold it
   into the scheduler.

> Also, is there anything that I need to do to get started (i.e. let
> specific people know what I am doing?)

Let us (i.e. the mailing list) know which one you pick.  Don't
hesitate to ask questions.  It's better to send lots of small patches
than one huge one.  Make sure you send patches to gcc-patches, or they
may get lost.  Start on your copyright paperwork now, it can take
months to clear the FSF.

zw