This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists
"My school's punch card machines were in the same room as the TRS-80
Model I ("THE COMPUTER ROOM"). These kids today with their hula hoops
and fax machines and intarwebs..."
-- Chip Salzenberg, arguing in *favor* of lines in excess of
80-characters.
perl6-language
multi-line comments, C macros, & Pod abuse <http://xrl.us/qyci>
Last week's summary covered this thread, which discussed easily
commenting out a large chunk of code.
This week the discussion continued slightly in to the realm of
meta-programming and programming environments, but not much meat was
added.
clarify: does "Dog is Mammal" load Mammal for you? <http://xrl.us/q5ge>
Mark Stosberg asked for clarification on S12 on whether `class Dog is
Mammal` requires Mammal to be loaded in advance. The current version
of Pugs needs an explicit `use Mammal`.
Darren Duncan believed an implicit `use Mammal` should only occur
conditionally, if a Mammal had been declared, but was concerned about
potential bugs. Jonathan Scott Duff had the impression that preloading
would not be required, and wondered if `class Dog is Mammal-4.5` would
be valid. Trey Harris referenced S11 to claim that Jonathan's
questionable syntax is valid. Andrew Suffield also tackled the
question of versioned libraries.
Heredoc issue in pugs. <http://xrl.us/q5gg>
Yiyi Hu wanted to know the correct syntax for heredocs, as S02 and
Pugs seem to be at odds. Larry Wall clarified that both are allowed.
Luke Palmer expressed concern about the false duality of `:to` and
`:from`. Larry noted that is why `:from` doesn't actually exist.
Pair of lists => list of pairs? <http://xrl.us/rav7>
Mark J. Reed asked how one would idiomatically write `my %h; @[EMAIL
PROTECTED]
= @[EMAIL PROTECTED] in Perl 6. Gaal Yahas suggested using ??, the `zip`
operator: `my %h = @keys ?? @values`. Larry Wall suggested using a
hyper pair: `my %h = @keys ??=>?? @values`.
clarifying the spec for 'ref' <http://xrl.us/rav8>
Mark Stosberg wanted Perl 6 to retain the Perl 5 responses to `ref` or
justify the change in the documentation. Larry Wall explained that
`ref` will not exist in Perl 6; instead, it will be something like
`.what`, which will return the type itself, rather than a string.
The thread then moved on to subclassing, after Luke Palmer suggested
that `Array` would be a subtype of `Array::Const`, after Larry had
stated the reverse. This led to a lengthy discussion on the subject.
My first functional perl6 program <http://xrl.us/rav9>
Mark J. Reed posted a simple program he wrote in Perl 6 for
educational purposes, asking for critique.
This lead to a discussion on the semantics of hyperoperators in
relation to finite/infinite sequences.
perl6-internals
[perl #40162] [PATCH] parrot/trunk/docs/art/pp001-intro.pod - spelling
<http://xrl.us/qvmp>
Last week, in ticket [perl #40162] <http://xrl.us/qvmq>, Amir E .
Aharoni sent a patch to correct some spelling errors.
It was applied as r14297.
[REPATCH] Parrot::Embed Take Two <http://xrl.us/qyb8>
Previously, chromatic submitted a patch for the build file to try to
resolve pkg_config issues with various platforms. He had some
questions about installing from outside the Parrot tree on Windows.
Leopold Toetsch offered a suggestion.
This week, Fran??ois Perrard explained how to solve the Windows issue.
[perl #40204] line numbers of runtime errors are one too low
<http://xrl.us/q5gh>
Chip Salzenberg created ticket [perl #40204] <http://xrl.us/rawa>
because runtime errors are off by one line. Leopold Toetsch thought
this was the same error reported in [perl #38594]
<http://xrl.us/rawb>, but Will Coleda disagreed. There was some
discussion on when new tickets should be created.
SKIPs Are Now a Code Smell <http://xrl.us/q5gj>
chromatic made two commits to unskip some valid tests. He was
concerned about the large number of tests which are being skipped in
Parrot. He suggested unskipping all tests which might pass, and use
TODO or deletion depending upon the relevance of the test. This was
added as a Cage Cleaner's task.
[perl #40207] [PATCH] tools/dev/install_files.pl - replace tabs with
spaces <http://xrl.us/raw6>
Amir E . Aharoni created the ticket, [perl #40207]
<http://xrl.us/rawc>, in which he supplied a patch that corrects the
indentation of `tools/dev/install_files.pl`.
[perl #40209] [TODO] convert t/compilers/pge/p6regex/01-regex.t to PIR
<http://xrl.us/q5gq>
Will Coleda wanted the tests in PIR instead of Perl to make `make
test` faster and to give a template for other test conversions. See
ticket [perl #40209] <http://xrl.us/rawd>.
[perl #40210] [TODO] Provide a way for PGE's dump to go to string
<http://xrl.us/q5gr>
In ticket [perl #40210] <http://xrl.us/rawe>, Will Coleda noted that
it would be useful to get a string when dumping, for testing. Patrick
R. Michaud created the `dump_str` method in r14306.
End the Hollerith Tyranny? (linelength.t) <http://xrl.us/q5gs>
Chip Salzenberg asked if anyone has any reservations from making the
parrot's source code repository follow a wrapping convention of over
80 columns. Some people said they were old enough to have used
terminals that couldn't physically support that, at which point Chip
showed them he was actually older.
It seems that the general consensus is to try to aim for 80 columns,
but that a hard limit of 100 will be set for when that doesn't work
well.
[svn:parrot-pdd] r14308 - in trunk: . cage docs docs/art docs/dev
docs/imcc docs/pdds docs/pdds/clip docs/stm languages languages/tcl/docs
lib/Pod/Simple t/distro <http://xrl.us/q5gt>
Joshua Hoblitt replied to a commit with a reminder that there is a
utility for formatting Parrot's Pod <http://xrl.us/rawf>.
#ParrotSketch Meeting 22AUG06 <http://xrl.us/q5gu>
Will Coleda posted the URL of the 22 August #ParrotSketch log
<http://xrl.us/rawg>.
[perl #40217] Parrot_autoload_class() knows about Python and Tcl
<http://xrl.us/q5gv>
Chip Salzenberg wanted hardcoded language names in Parrot removed.
This came up in ticket [perl #40217] <http://xrl.us/rawh>.
LLVM and HLVM <http://xrl.us/q5gw>
John Siracusa wondered if anyone had looked at LLVM recently and
wondered if Parrot might be able to target LLVM bytecode and let it do
further optimization for OS X. Peter Baylies responded that he'd
looked at it, and was currently waiting for an x86-64 build. Peter was
not sure there were benefits in targeting LLVM. Aaron Sherman added
that the extra layers would probably not make up for any optimization
gains.
[perl #40218] [BUG] - get_*_global opcodes throw exceptions
<http://xrl.us/q5gx>
In ticket [perl #40218] <http://xrl.us/rawi>, Matt Diephouse noted
that the documentation of get_*_hll says "If the global doesn't exist,
$1 is set to null" but currently it throws an exception.
[perl #40219] [TODO] - Steal Perl5's sprintf tests <http://xrl.us/q5gy>
Matt Diephouse created ticket [perl #40219] <http://xrl.us/rawj>. He
suggested using Perl 5's sprintf tests instead of writing new ones.
[perl #40225] Making Makefiles... <http://xrl.us/q5gz>
Will Coleda created ticket [perl #40225] <http://xrl.us/rawk> to
address the new features he'd like in `genfile()` when generating
makefiles. Leopold Toetsch thought that instead of inventing custom
make extensions, there should be a few needed gmake extensions. Will
agreed with stealing gmake syntax. Joshua Hoblitt disagreed with the
proposal. Will responded.
Announcing the Perl 6 and Parrot wiki workspaces <http://xrl.us/rawm>
Andy Lester announced the Perl 6 <http://rakudo.org/perl6> and Parrot
<http://rakudo.org/parrot> wikis.
[perl #40231] [PATCH] t/compilers/pge/06-grammar.t written in PIR
<http://xrl.us/rawn>
Nuno Carvalho rewrote `t/compilers/pge/06-grammar.t` in PIR and put it
in ticket [perl #40231] <http://xrl.us/rawo>.
Dumb Configure.pl question <http://xrl.us/rawp>
Mark J. Reed was running in to problems with linking when building
Parrot on OS X. Will Coleda listed some arguments that can be used in
configuration to support linking.
Find out in program code, if a PMC-property is set? <http://xrl.us/rawq>
Gerd Pokorra had issues extracting a PMC property when that property
has not been explicitly set, and wondered how one could go about
introspecting the PMC to determine whether or not a property is set.
Bob Rogers advised checking `PMC_IS_NULL`.
String.to_int() vs. opcode <http://xrl.us/raws>
Chip Salzenberg posted in response to Leopold Toetsch's addition of
`to_int()` to String. Chip suggested making it a common subroutine in
the C source. Will Coleda disagreed on the grounds that it is a
method, not an opcode, and that not everything needs to be a PMC.
Jerry Gay agreed with Chip. Chip also replied.
[perl #40210] [TODO] Provide a way for PGE's dump to go to string
<http://xrl.us/rawt>
Will Coleda created a ticket asking for PGE's `dump` to be able to go
to a string, and not just output, for testing purposes. Patrick R.
Michaud added a `dump_str` method in r14306, and then closed the
ticket.
perl6-users
junctions and autothreading <http://xrl.us/q5g2>
Amir E. Aharoni wanted to know what the status of 'autothreading' was,
after seeing some tantalizing references to it. Conrad Schneiker
didn't know, but suggested that looking at the #perl IRC log search
<http://xrl.us/rawu> as another document resource.
a practical question <http://xrl.us/q5g3>
Richard Nabil Hainsworth wanted to know how he could write an
application in Perl 6 which works with GUI toolkits such as WxWidgets.
Conrad Schneiker had a similar interest, although he focused on XPCOM,
XUL and other Mozilla GUI technologies. Steffen Schwigon suggested
some experimentation with using Perl 5 libraries, and requested that
Richard document his experiences.
Latest $1,000 Wiki for Perl 6 proposal/offer. <http://xrl.us/q5g4>
Conrad Schneiker brought up the long-running subject of the Perl 6
wiki bounty (refer to summaries for July and June for more information
on the history of this topic). He hoped that TPF could determine the
conditions of the contest. Andy Lester replied that he was in the
process of setting up a wiki for Perl documentation. Conrad asked a
few questions about Andy's plans.
Meanwhile, Paul Fenwick asked how PerlNet could improve to meet the
needs of the Perl community. Conrad and Amir E. Aharoni responded.
Same-named arguments <http://xrl.us/q5g5>
Michael Snoyman wanted to know what would happen if there was a
parameter list which included variables of a different type but the
same name. He included the results he got when trying it. Juerd said
he felt it should cause a compile time failure or a warning.
Michael reposted the message to the language mailing list: Same-named
arguments <http://xrl.us/q5g5>.
IO::Socket, or any IO <http://xrl.us/rawv>
Michael Snoyman wanted to know what the Pugs version of IO::Socket is.
perl6-compiler
Integrating the Pugs test suite into the Synopses <http://xrl.us/q5g7>
Agent Zhang announced that the test snippets in the Pugs test suite
have now been included in the Synopses, thanks to smartlinks
<http://svn.openfoundry.org/pugs/t/README>.
Ponie has been put out to pasture <http://xrl.us/raww>
Jesse Vincent announced the end of the Ponie project. Making Perl 5
code run seamlessly alongside Perl 6 in Parrot is still a goal, but it
is being addressed in other ways.
pugs: rw block parameters <http://xrl.us/rawx>
Mark J. Reed wanted to know if rw parameters for blocks had been
implemented. Larry Wall agreed that it was not currently working.
Audrey Tang made clarification in r12675. Tests (37 and 38) were added
to `for.t` for the situation Mark described, as r12968.
Pugs bugs <http://xrl.us/rawy>
Mark J. Reed wondered if Pugs bugs were stored somewhere, so that he
could avoid mentioning known bugs. He included some questions. Larry
Wall replied that in Pugs, a bug is represented by a failing test. He
also answered questions.
Acknowlegements
Yuval Kogman once again contributed summaries for some of the threads.
This summary was prepared using Mail::Summary::Tools
<http://xrl.us/qvno>, now available on CPAN.
If you appreciate Perl, consider [contributing to the Perl
Foundation](http://donate.perlfoundation.org) to help support the
development of Perl.
Thank you to everyone who has pointed out mistakes and offered
suggestions for improving this series. Comments on this summary can be
sent to Ann Barcomb, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
Distribution
This summary can be found in the following places:
* use.perl.org <http://use.perl.org/>
* The pugs blog <http://pugs.blogs.com/>
* The perl6-announce mailing list <http://xrl.us/qycj>
* ONLamp <http://www.oreillynet.com/>
See Also
* Perl Foundation activities <http://blog.perlfoundation.org>
* Perl 6 Development <http://dev.perl.org/perl6>
* Planet Perl Six <http://planetsix.perl.org/perl6>
