There is a mirror of this web site at Universität Tübingen, Germany
At the Dagstuhl Seminar on Generic Programming held April 27-May 1, 1998 at the Schloß Dagstuhl, Wadern, Germany, a session was held discussing possible projects, with nominations also for open problems. Dave Musser started the discussion by putting up on the blackboard a tree diagram showing a possible taxonomy and filling in a few leaf nodes with some of his own suggestions for projects and open problems. The discussion was then opened for others to add project and problem suggestions or to add interior nodes to the classification tree. Jim Dehnert added a number of STL-related projects from a lengthy list compiled by Alex Stepanov. Due to time limitations not all of Alex's list was discussed during the session, but the full list is incorporated in various places in the taxonomy here, including some projects that are well underway. (Alex's list was more than a year old.) There was a lively discussion in the session as others contributed projects or project areas.2
The current state of this list should not, of course, be considered "complete" in any way. It is being made available on the WWW for the Dagstuhl participants and others to make additions or revisions. It will likely continually grow, but hopefully it can be pruned as projects are completed or open problems are solved! (These can be highlighted or maintained separately as a record of progress.)
Suggestions are also sought for improving the level and type of information provided with projects and problems. For example, should there be a rating system to help readers understand the level of difficulty and/or importance attached to a project or problem by its proposer? Originally Alex Stepanov rated the projects on his list according to both difficulty and importance, each on a scale of 1 to 5. Those ratings are currently not included here, but if there is enough interest they could be added, perhaps after translation to an agreed-up scale.