[ts-gen] Feature priorities

[Bill Pippin]

An off-list user asked about fixes to memory management for x64,
and implicitly about how work with that issue was being scheduled
relative to other tasks, and I'm reposting part of my reply to
the list for those interested.

He asked:

> ... maybe you remember ... the compiled application [shim]
> wouldn't work on amd64 machines. ...

and my reply, lightly edited and with some additional material
appended:

The large-scale goals we have for shim development are as follows:

    1.  order journalling, and cross-session order manipulation;

    2.  improved memory management, including restoration of 64bit
        support;

    3.  a new, more flexible symbol and order input language,
        allowing descriptive expressions as well as contract
        numbers; and

    4.  improved, multi-version support across versions of the
        tws api, including (hopefully) most of the newer features
        outside of and not including FA, which we don't use.

There are also small-scale goals that are interleaved with the
items above.  These include fixing the help facility, for the
benefit of newer users on the list, and adding a new initialization
option for shim configuration, to simplify our test process. 
This also includes bug fixing, such as compilation on Debian,
and version updating, to keep up with the IB tws api.
These may not be as important as the major goals above, but
also don't take as much effort, and so are worth doing.

Finally, much of the goals above rest on ongoing refactoring of
the existing code base.  Although this refactoring may not always
have a clearcut connection with the goals above, experience has
taught me that code cleanup is *not* optional.

So, returning to the list 1 -- 4 above, I've been working on (1) this
week, and will also look into the problem with Debian, and pushing
the shim to work with tws build 886.5, and fixing help.

The goals in 1 -- 4 are not cast in stone, and this post is not a
promise of implementation or support.  This is, after all, free
software.  They have been decided based on our internal needs and
the input of users from the list, and are subject to change.

We're always glad to hear from users, especially about the features
they'd like to see in the shim, and I'd like to thank those who've
contributed to the milestone list above, in particular Nils.

Thanks,

Bill