Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#31

Post by perlgeek » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

codeflo wrote: post #30

cygx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, what happens at Christmas is the first proper language release (as specified by the test suite) that will be accompanied by a conforming compiler release, ie the main focus is still semantics, not 'production readiness'. That said, Rakudo of today is more usable than Rakudo of days gone by, though there are still issues (my personal pet peeve: parsing speed; hopefully , automatic precompilation will…

Thanks for the clarification. So what does it mean to release "a language"? Is there a specification in addition to the test suite? Is the specification frozen from that point on? Or will it change, but only in backwards compatible ways?

The test suite is the actual specification; for the language release, it will be cleaned up of things that aren't yet ironed out.

The design documents at http://design.perl6.org/ are companion documents to the test suite, but where the two are in conflict, the test suite is authoritative.

As for changes: backward incompatible changes will result in a new language version.

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#32

Post by perlgeek » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #27

codeflo wrote: post #26

So, like probably many people, I was very hyped about Perl 6 in the early 2000s, followed the mailing lists and so forth, but became disappointed and stopped caring when it became painfully clear that there had been no net progress for a decade. So please excuse my skepticism, because I'm still fascinated by Perl 6's ideas and potential. But is this another "Rakudo Star" where they just take whatever current mess the…

I keep wondering the same, especially when perl.org mentions nothing about Perl 6. It would be really nice if they showed some sort of sign there about Perl 6. Instead all we get is Perl 5.

Perl 6 is mentioned on http://dev.perl.org/. I hope to get it to the perl.org front page after or on occasion of the release.

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#33

Post by kriro » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

So much good stuff. I really like the kernel+distribution idea and thinking about lexer/parser and "just adding stuff to that" like the example of adding Ruby ?! syntax.

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#34

Post by perlgeek » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #7

rurban wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster than Perl5 with Moose, but slower than similar languages with similar features. But there are not many with this impressive feature set.

Shame it's slower than existing work. We know pretty well how to optimise dynamic languages these days.

We do, but it's a hell lot of work, especially for something much more complicated than Javascript.

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#35

Post by rockshassa » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

Where was this video a month ago? I looked all over for it when Perl 6 was released!

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#36

Post by epoch1970 » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

When will a traditional interpreter written in C and running just about everywhere be available for Perl 6?

All of the successful scripting languages have one: Perl 5 and earlier, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Lua, PHP, and even UNIX shell scripts.

Yet when it comes to Perl 6, we just don't see that.

The Perl 6 community has spun its wheels time and time and time again with half-baked interpreters written in an obscure language like Haskell, or written in Perl 6 itself using half-baked Perl 6 to 5 converters, or targeting the .NET CLR or JVM, or targeting very obscure and limited VMs like Parrot or MoarVM.

It's no wonder that Perl 6 hasn't really gone anywhere after 15 years. They've done everything but the one thing they should be doing if they want success: implementing a traditional interpreter using C that runs just about everywhere!

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#37

Post by mrxenu » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

epoch1970 wrote: post #36

When will a traditional interpreter written in C and running just about everywhere be available for Perl 6? All of the successful scripting languages have one: Perl 5 and earlier, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Lua, PHP, and even UNIX shell scripts. Yet when it comes to Perl 6, we just don't see that. The Perl 6 community has spun its wheels time and time and time again with half-baked interpreters written in an obscure language…

I don't quite get your point. MoarVM was created specifically for Perl 6, it is written in C and just works. JVM support in Rakudo is just added bonus and you are free to ignore it (like most users do).

For 99% users "Perl 6" will mean just "Rakudo + MoarVM" which seems to be exactly what you're asking for.

Note that MoarVM is nothing like Parrot. Parrot was a failed project which intended to bring universal VM for all dynamic languages. Obviously, too wide project scope resulted in broken and unmaintainable implementation.

MoarVM is made just for Perl 6 and intends to avoid repeating its predecessor's mistakes.

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#38

Post by perlgeek » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

stesch wrote: post #6

rurban wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster than Perl5 with Moose, but slower than similar languages with similar features. But there are not many with this impressive feature set.

With all these different implementations how hard is it to access C libraries and/or make modules that use C?

Not very difficult, see http://doc.perl6.org/language/nativecall

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#39

Post by justinator » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

epoch1970 wrote: post #36

When will a traditional interpreter written in C and running just about everywhere be available for Perl 6? All of the successful scripting languages have one: Perl 5 and earlier, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Lua, PHP, and even UNIX shell scripts. Yet when it comes to Perl 6, we just don't see that. The Perl 6 community has spun its wheels time and time and time again with half-baked interpreters written in an obscure language…

> with half-baked interpreters written in an obscure language like Haskell

Because the author thought it to be fun. You know, hackers and all.

> or written in Perl 6 itself using half-baked Perl 6 to 5 converters

Oh, I don't think that ever happened.

You may be thinking of NQP? Which is still a Thing, and it's what Perl 6 is written in, which is amazing.

There was also the initial idea that Perl 6 could run Perl 5, but this is proving impossible. This is done now using the Inline::* modules, which will use say, the Perl 5 interpreter. [0]

So, there's one for Perl5 to allow for compatibility with Perl 5 modules, but also for Python[1], and most likely for x language. That's awesome!

Of course, the inverse is true, too. You can call up Perl 6, from Perl 5![2]

> or targeting the .NET CLR or JVM, or targeting very > obscure and limited VMs like Parrot or MoarVM.

Targeting .NET or JVM is also a good idea! Many languages do it. The general idea of Parrot shares a lot of interesting ideas with .NET - I almost want to say Parrot precedes .NET. The April Fools joke certainly did. If it didn't, Parrot was certainly inspired by .NET - or it was just an idea that was in the air at the time. Good idea!

[0] https://github.com/niner/Inline-Perl5 [1] https://github.com/niner/Inline-Python/ [2] https://metacpan.org/pod/Inline::Perl6

Re: Larry Wall's Perl 6 Release Talk [video]

#40

Post by Scarbutt » Sat, Nov 14, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

esaym wrote: post #2

Cool. I am glad there has been enough support and supporters over the years to push it to the finish. Compiled native executables, concurrency, async code blocks, and much more. I look forward to learning as soon as I get a chance. Hoping that companies adopt as well.

compile native executables

How does that work? is the moarvm bundled in the executable?