[tug-summer-of-code] Project ideas

[Karl Berry]

    I also have an idea to propose. In short, the idea is parallel
    version of TeX. My plan is to use OpenMP for parallelization. It
    should make TeX run faster without much more complication in the
    code base. Please give me some thoughts.

The basic TeX code is monolithic and relies almost entirely on global
variables.  There have been some discussions of parallelizing certain
small parts of the code, such as the output routine, but even this is
fraught with extreme difficulty.  I am not sure what can be usefully
parallelized.

Also, in terms of doing this as a student, the people whom I can think
that would be suitable mentors have said they unfortunately don't have
time to mentor anything this year.

Now, if you want to pursue the idea outside of GSoC and have potential
ideas for what parts of the code would be run in parallel, that's cool :).
Please write tex-k at tug.org for that.  Most of the relevant people
aren't on this list.

Thanks,
Karl