Pending patches about named references (from most to least important)
Other pending patches (from most to least important)
Review of dereferencing lookups
I have started reviewing all parameter lookups that also dereference named references, i.e., more or less all calls to realparamtab->getnode(). Several of these lookups have issues. In many cases, they should simply not perform any dereferencing (i.e., call getnode2() instead of getnode) but a few are more problematic. I have already reviewed most lookup and will start sending out patches and/or start discussions to figure out what to do.
Review of typeset implementation
A few months ago, I started an exhaustive review of the implementation of typeset and found many issues, which lead to many side tracks. Some of them have been resolved and a few others are among the patches listed above. However, I know for sure that there are still issues with typeset. In particular with -p and -m when applied to named references. I suspect that there are also still issues with some calls to typeset p=v where p is an existing named reference.
Turn placeholder dereferencing into an error
In ksh, any attempt to dereference a placeholder reference triggers an error. Zsh should do the same. Currently it sometimes exhibits rather dubious behaviors in place of triggering an error.
Discuss the semantics of references to not-yet-defined variables
With the current implementation, references to not-yet-defined variables lead sometimes to behaviors that are nonsensical in my opinion. I think that a different approach could lead to references that are not only less problematic but also generally more useful.
Other issues
I'm aware of a number of other issues but as long as named references are released as an experimental feature, I think that they can be addressed after the release.
Philippe