That is quite a step forward! Happy 22nd, All! On Jul 22, 2016 4:01 AM, "Steve Mynott" <steve.myn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I’m pleased to > announce the July 2016 release of “Rakudo Star”, a useful and usable > production distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the July 2016 release is > available from http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/. > > This is the third post-Christmas (production) release of Rakudo Star and > implements Perl v6.c. It comes with support for the MoarVM backend (all > module tests pass on supported platforms). > > Please note that this release of Rakudo Star is not fully functional with > the JVM backend from the Rakudo compiler. Please use the MoarVM backend > only. > > In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language (“Perl 6″) > and specific implementations of the language such as “Rakudo Perl”. This > Star release includes release 2016.07 of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler, > version 2016.07 of MoarVM, plus various modules, documentation, and other > resources collected from the Perl 6 community. > > Some of the new compiler features since the last Rakudo Star release > include: > > + Ability to use a customer debugger module > + The “is-approx” sub from Test.pm6 now allows for relative/absolute > tolerance > + A fail in a custom BUILD will now be returned, rather than thrown > + Introduce .Map coercer > + Implement alternate ways to call subtest > + Support for new leap-second at the end of 2016 > + The “is required” trait on Attributes can now take a Bool or a Str > + IO::[Path,Handle] gained a .mode method which returns the POSIX file > permissions > + Distribution is now a role interface that enables encapsulating IO used > for distribution installation > + CompUnit::Repository::Installation now uses the new Distribution > interface > + Custom repository implementations now supported, including precompilation > > Compiler maintenance since the last Rakudo Star release includes: > > + Basic object creation (using either .new or .bless) now up to 3x faster > + All routines now have less overhead > + The MMD cache accepts candidates with named parameters if it can. (This > made adverbed slices about 18x as fast) > + Sigificant optimizations for speed in many parts of the system (.map, > gather/take etc.) > + Many precompilation fixes (including EVAL and improved support of OS > packaging) > + Arrays with holes (e.g. from :delete) now correctly iterate/auto-vivify > + An issue with reverse dependencies of installed modules was fixed > + “is_approx” sub (note underscore) from Test.pm6 deprecated > + Harden Mu.Str against moving GC > + Simplify $USER/$GROUP initialization > + Mu can now be the result of a Promise > + samewith() now also works on non-multi’s > + Many fixes in the area of pre-compilation and installing modules > + count-only and bool-only now are optional methods in Iterators (only to > be implemented if they can work without generating anything) > + IO::ArgFiles.slurp / IO::ArgFiles.eof are fixed > + REPL whitespace and error handling > + CompUnit::Repository::Installation no longer considers bin/xxx and > resources/bin/xxx the same content address > + min/max on Failures throw instead of returning ±Inf > + NativeCall’s is mangled trait no longer ignored for CPPStruct > + Many Str, List and Array methods much faster > + Map/Hash initializations are now 30% faster > + make DESTDIR now correctly finds CompUnit::Repository::Staging > + Output from Test.pm6′s diag() is no longer lost in non-verbose prove > output when called at the start of the test file or during TODO tests > + Improved error messages > > Notable changes in modules shipped with Rakudo Star: > > + DBIish: v0.5.9 (with many Oracle/MySQL fixes) plus README.pod and > mojibake fixes > + NativeHelpers-Blob: v0.1.10 > + PSGI: v1.2.0 supports P6SGI 0.7Draft > + Pod-To-HTML: v0.1.2 plus fixes > + debugger-ui-commandline: README fixes > + doc: many fixes to documentation content and HTML generation > + panda: Avoid Rakudo internals deprecation warning and don’t require > Build.pm to inherit Panda::Builder > + perl6-file-which: CI fixes > + perl6-http-easy: v1.1.0 (with more flexible P6SGI support) plus avoid > errors in binary request > + shell-command: Mention already implemented commands missing from README > + perl6-lwp-simple: track github.com/perl6/perl6-lwp-simple as upstream > (as panda does) which has a test fix needed since we don’t support https in > R* and a test url had a new https redirect > > perl6intro.pdf has also been updated. > > There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not yet handle > appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming releases. Some of the > not-quite-there features include: > > + advanced macros > + non-blocking I/O (in progress) > + some bits of Synopsis 9 and 11 > + There is an online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features that > lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo’s backends and > other Perl 6 implementations. > > In many places we’ve tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the > programmer that a given feature isn’t implemented, but there are many that > we’ve missed. Bug reports about missing and broken features are welcomed at > rakudo...@perl.org. > > See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about Perl 6, > including documentation, example code, tutorials, presentations, reference > materials, design documents, and other supporting resources. Some Perl 6 > tutorials are available under the “docs” directory in the release tarball. > > The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors for > making Rakudo Star possible. If you would like to contribute, see > http://rakudo.org/how-to-help, ask on the perl6-compi...@perl.org mailing > list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode. > > > -- > 4096R/EA75174B Steve Mynott <steve.myn...@gmail.com> >
