Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
So I'd change that to after a production release of a Perl 6 compiler Out of curiosity (because I think it will illuminate some of the difficulty Rakudo devs have in declaring something to be a production release): - What constitues a production release? - What was the first production release of Perl 4? - What was the first production release of Perl 5? - What was the first production release of Linux? - At what point was each of the above declared a production release; was it concurrent with the release, or some time afterwards? Pm Larry responded to a post of mine asking about when Perl6 would be finished - the post was about the time that Pugs was still being actively developed. He pointed to the difference between the waterfall model and the strange attractor model for software development, perl6 progress being measured using the strange attractor model. Many of the questions and answers about a 'production release' imply the waterfall model. The concept here is that some one 'in authority' sets criteria which define 'finished'. Once the software / language / project fulfils the criteria - the edge of the waterfall - it is 'finished'. This has the advantage that everyone knows when to break out the champaign and have a party. It has the disadvantage that criteria of 'finished' can rarely be written in advance because to do so requires precognition, or knowledge of the future. Is there any sophisticated piece of software that is 'perfect', has no bugs, is easy to use? Was MS Vista 'production' quality? Perl 5.0 was quickly replaced by Perl 5.004 (I think), which include references. The strange attractor model implies a process that is never ending, in that there will always be deviations from the solution 'orbit' or 'path'. However, there comes a time when for most normal purposes, the solution orbit will be so 'narrow' that the blips will be not be noticed for most situations. In this respect, qualitative statements such as 'when developers accept it' or 'providers such as ActiveState etc' bundle it are recognition of the strange attractor measure of progress of Perl6. Personally, I think that we are in sight of acceptance for Rakudo Star. This is an implementation of a subset of Perl6. I also believe that when Rakudo begins to implement Sets, Macros and deals with the problems posed by GUI, we will see further changes in the Perl6 specification. It is unlikely that such changes will 'break' Rakudo *. A question that would be useful to ask is: When will Rakudo Star be useful for some of your purposes? a) It is already useful; b) When running precompiled Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as running Perl5 versions, on average. c) When running (from human readable text to final result) Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as Perl5 versions, on average. d) When Rakudo * implements a larger subset of Perl6 and/or access well-written C/C++ libraries efficiently, presupposing (c). Another question would be what should be in the test suite of example programs? The example programs are not the test suite, which verifies consistency with the specification. The example programs should be designed - I suggest - to test speed and memory footprint. Ultimately, programmers are interested in solutions that are quick and use least hardware resources (the human resource of writing a simple and understandable program being the strongest part of Perl6, at least I think so).
RE: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
Hear! Hear! -Original Message- From: Daniel Carrera [mailto:dcarr...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 7:15 AM To: Richard Hainsworth Cc: perl6-users@perl.org Subject: Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl Although everything you said is technically true, I must point out that without a definitive release, potential users will tend to avoid the software. For people not involved in the process (i.e. 99.995% of Perl users) it is impossible to know when the software is good enough for use. You may talk about strange attractors and orbits, but I haven't the faintest clue how big the orbit of either Perl 6 or Rakudo is. Therefore, I cannot recommend it to other people, and I will hesitate to use it on anything that is very important. Daniel. On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Richard Hainsworth rich...@rusrating.ru wrote: So I'd change that to after a production release of a Perl 6 compiler Out of curiosity (because I think it will illuminate some of the difficulty Rakudo devs have in declaring something to be a production release): - What constitues a production release? - What was the first production release of Perl 4? - What was the first production release of Perl 5? - What was the first production release of Linux? - At what point was each of the above declared a production release; was it concurrent with the release, or some time afterwards? Pm Larry responded to a post of mine asking about when Perl6 would be finished - the post was about the time that Pugs was still being actively developed. He pointed to the difference between the waterfall model and the strange attractor model for software development, perl6 progress being measured using the strange attractor model. Many of the questions and answers about a 'production release' imply the waterfall model. The concept here is that some one 'in authority' sets criteria which define 'finished'. Once the software / language / project fulfils the criteria - the edge of the waterfall - it is 'finished'. This has the advantage that everyone knows when to break out the champaign and have a party. It has the disadvantage that criteria of 'finished' can rarely be written in advance because to do so requires precognition, or knowledge of the future. Is there any sophisticated piece of software that is 'perfect', has no bugs, is easy to use? Was MS Vista 'production' quality? Perl 5.0 was quickly replaced by Perl 5.004 (I think), which include references. The strange attractor model implies a process that is never ending, in that there will always be deviations from the solution 'orbit' or 'path'. However, there comes a time when for most normal purposes, the solution orbit will be so 'narrow' that the blips will be not be noticed for most situations. In this respect, qualitative statements such as 'when developers accept it' or 'providers such as ActiveState etc' bundle it are recognition of the strange attractor measure of progress of Perl6. Personally, I think that we are in sight of acceptance for Rakudo Star. This is an implementation of a subset of Perl6. I also believe that when Rakudo begins to implement Sets, Macros and deals with the problems posed by GUI, we will see further changes in the Perl6 specification. It is unlikely that such changes will 'break' Rakudo *. A question that would be useful to ask is: When will Rakudo Star be useful for some of your purposes? a) It is already useful; b) When running precompiled Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as running Perl5 versions, on average. c) When running (from human readable text to final result) Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as Perl5 versions, on average. d) When Rakudo * implements a larger subset of Perl6 and/or access well-written C/C++ libraries efficiently, presupposing (c). Another question would be what should be in the test suite of example programs? The example programs are not the test suite, which verifies consistency with the specification. The example programs should be designed - I suggest - to test speed and memory footprint. Ultimately, programmers are interested in solutions that are quick and use least hardware resources (the human resource of writing a simple and understandable program being the strongest part of Perl6, at least I think so). -- No trees were destroyed in the generation of this email. However, a large number of electrons were severely inconvenienced. -- This message w/attachments (message) is intended solely for the use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or proprietary. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, and then please delete and destroy all copies and attachments, and be advised that any review or
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
There has been requests and talk of a production release for years now. Fancy titles released have come out monthly and quarterly for some time. At some point you have to say it simply isn't a good product or it is going to production how long are we going to hear excuses of my dog died past week and the production release is delayed for a year. Perl 6 at this point seems like a bad dream at best and there really isn't a need since moose and perl 5 have improved. Sent from my iPhone Wendell Hatcher wendell_hatc...@comcast.net 303-520-7554 Blogsite: http://thoughtsofaperlprogrammer.typepad.com/blog On Jan 5, 2011, at 6:13 AM, Anderson, Jim jim.ander...@bankofamerica.com wrote: Hear! Hear! -Original Message- From: Daniel Carrera [mailto:dcarr...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 7:15 AM To: Richard Hainsworth Cc: perl6-users@perl.org Subject: Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl Although everything you said is technically true, I must point out that without a definitive release, potential users will tend to avoid the software. For people not involved in the process (i.e. 99.995% of Perl users) it is impossible to know when the software is good enough for use. You may talk about strange attractors and orbits, but I haven't the faintest clue how big the orbit of either Perl 6 or Rakudo is. Therefore, I cannot recommend it to other people, and I will hesitate to use it on anything that is very important. Daniel. On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Richard Hainsworth rich...@rusrating.ru wrote: So I'd change that to after a production release of a Perl 6 compiler Out of curiosity (because I think it will illuminate some of the difficulty Rakudo devs have in declaring something to be a production release): - What constitues a production release? - What was the first production release of Perl 4? - What was the first production release of Perl 5? - What was the first production release of Linux? - At what point was each of the above declared a production release; was it concurrent with the release, or some time afterwards? Pm Larry responded to a post of mine asking about when Perl6 would be finished - the post was about the time that Pugs was still being actively developed. He pointed to the difference between the waterfall model and the strange attractor model for software development, perl6 progress being measured using the strange attractor model. Many of the questions and answers about a 'production release' imply the waterfall model. The concept here is that some one 'in authority' sets criteria which define 'finished'. Once the software / language / project fulfils the criteria - the edge of the waterfall - it is 'finished'. This has the advantage that everyone knows when to break out the champaign and have a party. It has the disadvantage that criteria of 'finished' can rarely be written in advance because to do so requires precognition, or knowledge of the future. Is there any sophisticated piece of software that is 'perfect', has no bugs, is easy to use? Was MS Vista 'production' quality? Perl 5.0 was quickly replaced by Perl 5.004 (I think), which include references. The strange attractor model implies a process that is never ending, in that there will always be deviations from the solution 'orbit' or 'path'. However, there comes a time when for most normal purposes, the solution orbit will be so 'narrow' that the blips will be not be noticed for most situations. In this respect, qualitative statements such as 'when developers accept it' or 'providers such as ActiveState etc' bundle it are recognition of the strange attractor measure of progress of Perl6. Personally, I think that we are in sight of acceptance for Rakudo Star. This is an implementation of a subset of Perl6. I also believe that when Rakudo begins to implement Sets, Macros and deals with the problems posed by GUI, we will see further changes in the Perl6 specification. It is unlikely that such changes will 'break' Rakudo *. A question that would be useful to ask is: When will Rakudo Star be useful for some of your purposes? a) It is already useful; b) When running precompiled Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as running Perl5 versions, on average. c) When running (from human readable text to final result) Rakudo * versions for a test suite of example programs is as fast as Perl5 versions, on average. d) When Rakudo * implements a larger subset of Perl6 and/or access well-written C/C++ libraries efficiently, presupposing (c). Another question would be what should be in the test suite of example programs? The example programs are not the test suite, which verifies consistency with the specification. The example programs should be designed - I suggest - to test speed and memory footprint. Ultimately, programmers are interested in
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 17:30, Guy Hulbert gwhulb...@eol.ca wrote: Rakudo is not listed here: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ Fixing that is something I'd like to help with. Note that go was listed *before* it was announced. That tells me that the go authors are, in some small way, more serious about their project succeeding than perl6. So your suggestion to Gabor is to add the question: Do you think that NOT listing Rakudo at shootout.alioth.debian.org means Rakudo is not a serious project? Or did you have some other point? (This is the first time I've seen shootout.alioth.debian.org, I won't claim that it's not a serious shootout just because of that, BTW.) -- Jan
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
My point is make it a production release so peeps can push it to the powers that be in the corporate world. This has been the longest production build in test in the history of mankind. If this was a real world project it would have been dead sometime ago. Sent from my iPhone Wendell Hatcher wendell_hatc...@comcast.net 303-520-7554 Blogsite: http://thoughtsofaperlprogrammer.typepad.com/blog On Jan 5, 2011, at 9:31 AM, Richard Hainsworth rich...@rusrating.ru wrote: Without the development phenomenon of Perl6, it's difficult to see how Moose and other improvements in perl 5 would have occurred. Despite the frustrations in following the growth of Pugs, then Rakudo, it's been fun, worthwhile and inspiring. A bit like life really. Do you really want it to end? But until it ends, how can you tell what sort of person you are, or what your achievements have been? I love Perl6. Rukudo is great - already. On 01/05/11 17:21, Wendell Hatcher wrote: There has been requests and talk of a production release for years now. Fancy titles released have come out monthly and quarterly for some time. At some point you have to say it simply isn't a good product or it is going to production how long are we going to hear excuses of my dog died past week and the production release is delayed for a year. Perl 6 at this point seems like a bad dream at best and there really isn't a need since moose and perl 5 have improved. Sent from my iPhone Wendell Hatcher wendell_hatc...@comcast.net 303-520-7554 Blogsite: http://thoughtsofaperlprogrammer.typepad.com/blog On Jan 5, 2011, at 6:13 AM, Anderson, Jimjim.ander...@bankofamerica.com wrote: Hear! Hear! -Original Message- From: Daniel Carrera [mailto:dcarr...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 7:15 AM To: Richard Hainsworth Cc: perl6-users@perl.org Subject: Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl Although everything you said is technically true, I must point out that without a definitive release, potential users will tend to avoid the software. For people not involved in the process (i.e. 99.995% of Perl users) it is impossible to know when the software is good enough snip
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
On 01/05/11 19:48, Daniel Carrera wrote: On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Richard Hainsworthrich...@rusrating.ru wrote: It is blindingly obvious that the majority of language users, ..., will only start to use a language when it is recommended by 'those in authority'... I think the issue of a version number is irrelevant 1) You have more or less contradicted yourself. If we agree that Larry Wall is an authority, for example, it is reasonable to wait until he says that the Perl 6 spec is ready, and many will also wait until Rakudo claims to mostly comply with the Perl 6 spec. From what Larry has already said, I dont think he ever will say the Perl 6 spec is ready. The spec and the language are evolving together. That is what the waterfall and attractor stuff was all about. When I said 'in authority', I meant those opinion-makers (from bloggers to journalists to heads of major software developers) who start saying 'xxx is a really cool language'. 2) Version number may not be relevant to you, but it is relevant to others. Therefore, it is relevant to the adoption of Perl 6. And here it seems to me that you begin to prove the point I am trying to make: version numbers are irrelevant as carriers of information about usefulness, stability, or even maturity of product. , given the vested interest of the developer to assign a number that will attract users, That has not been my experience with FOSS projects. Rather, I think developers shy away from ever saying 1.0. For example, the JED editor has been around for a long time, but its version number is 0.99-19. How can 0.99-19 mean anything? Does it mean under 1.0? If so, does this meant that the developers of JED consider it to be unusable or 'not for production purposes'? My entire point is that the version number, in of itself, has no more meaning than what the developers want it to mean. But acceptance is not determined by the developers. The Enlightenment window manager too 10 years before they were comfortable saying 1.0. This fear of 1.0 was even the subject of a paragraph in Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and The Bazaar. to such an extent that there is rule of thumb never to use the first release, but to wait until the version 'has matured'. I've heard this in the Windows world, Though I have been using Linux exclusively for about 5 years now, the Windows world remains an order of magnitude larger. So again, if the point is true in the Windows world, it seems I would win the argument. but I think the FOSS world version numbers tend to be lower. For example, I remember that Netscape 5.0 was equivalent to Mozilla 1.0. Wasnt that due to organisational and ownership changes relating to the development of Netscape? Even if the developers of Rakudo release a V1.0, would that in itself lead to the acceptance of Perl6. I doubt it. Necessary but not sufficient condition? Not even necessary. Why not v0.99-? A great deal that is needed to demonstrate the stability and strength of Perl6 for 'production' purposes has been included in the design from the very beginning, namely, a MASSIVE test suite. How many people, not involved in Perl 6, know that? See the point? I bet that you don't follow the development process of every single software package you use. For any given software package, 99.99% of users do not follow the developers list of look through the test suite. You are again confirming a point I have tried to make. Most people do not themselves try out new languages or indeed anything new until they have read a recommendation from someone they trust. If I want a new camera, I search the internet for reviews - I cant test each one. But once I do settle on a choice, I then want the proof. Just because a reviewer says its good, how do I know he / she isnt paid by the company? The proof that software is stable and robust comes from testing. And testing has been the foundation of the development of Perl6. When - eventually - critics compare Perl6 to some other language and discuss the robustness of the compiler, they will look at the size of the test suites. Richard Daniel.
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
On Wed, 2011-05-01 at 10:24 -0700, Wendell Hatcher wrote: I have to agree I don't think this is a serious project. In-fact at this point it seems like a bunch of friends working on a hobby in their basement. I'm not sure I said anything to agree with. You seem to misinterpret my intention. [snip] Do you think that NOT listing Rakudo at shootout.alioth.debian.org means Rakudo is not a serious project? Or did you have some other point? Marketing. What I meant was that a serious project pays attention to marketing. The perl6 marketing effort is limited by resources more than go is. [snip] The benchmarking program can be downloaded (which I've done) and comes bundled with 2 or 3 python programs, one of which requires python 2.5 and I'm still on python 2.4 (don't ask). However I've figured out how to see the source for example programs, so I'll manually download all the perl5 and C ones and try to get the benchmarker going for those. Here's what I will attempt to reproduce: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=alllang=perllang2=gcc I will start by downloading each program in C and perl (there seem to be several C versions -- and sometimes several perl versions available) and just running them appropriately. It'll take me a little while ... I'm fairly busy. I'll report _any_ progress back to the list ... if you don't hear from me by February 1st feel free to nag me. By 'progress', I mean something on github. -- --gh
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
'serious project' ??? For some 'serious' people, Perl6 is a 'serious project'. Concepts of 'serious' differ amongst reasonable people. Not a problem if your 'serious' aint my 'serious'. As an aside, it took 358 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Wiles - who proved it - shut himself away for the five years he spent creating the last part of the proof sequence. A number of historical figures have looked at the problem. That to my mind is a 'serious project' and serious people, and Wiles did indeed work on it in a 'basement' as a 'hobby'. It was an obsession and he was afraid of telling people what he was working on. But now we consider him a hero. Rakudo and Perl6 is being developed in the way it is for good and practical reasons. Richard On 01/05/11 20:24, Wendell Hatcher wrote: I have to agree I don't think this is a serious project. In-fact at this point it seems like a bunch of friends working on a hobby in their basement. Sent from my iPhone Wendell Hatcher wendell_hatc...@comcast.net 303-520-7554 Blogsite: http://thoughtsofaperlprogrammer.typepad.com/blog On Jan 5, 2011, at 10:15 AM, Guy Hulbertgwhulb...@eol.ca wrote: On Wed, 2011-05-01 at 18:02 +0100, Jan Ingvoldstad wrote: On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 17:30, Guy Hulbertgwhulb...@eol.ca wrote: Rakudo is not listed here: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ Fixing that is something I'd like to help with. Note that go was listed *before* it was announced. That tells me that the go authors are, in some small way, more serious about their project succeeding than perl6. So your suggestion to Gabor is to add the question: No. The subject changed ... Do you think that NOT listing Rakudo at shootout.alioth.debian.org means Rakudo is not a serious project? Or did you have some other point? Marketing. (This is the first time I've seen shootout.alioth.debian.org, I won't claim that it's not a serious shootout just because of that, BTW.) When go was announced a link to 'shootout' was in the announcement. I think I might have seen if before that but, if so, i'd forgotten so it was new to me at the time. What got me interested in perl6 was the april fools announcement about parrot ostensibly by Larry and Guido. Something like 10 years ago. I don't learn new programming languages unless I have something to do with it. I've been looking at what it would take to implement perl6/rakudo versions of the programs on 'shootout', and I think I can do it so I will try to get one or two of them running properly in the benchmarker. The benchmarking program can be downloaded (which I've done) and comes bundled with 2 or 3 python programs, one of which requires python 2.5 and I'm still on python 2.4 (don't ask). However I've figured out how to see the source for example programs, so I'll manually download all the perl5 and C ones and try to get the benchmarker going for those. It'll take me a little while ... -- --gh
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
Guy, Your idea is actually exactly what I was suggesting when I said 'example programs'. I think there are/were perl6 versions for the shootout problems. I am not sure what happened to them. Getting benchmarking will be interesting. Regards, Richard On 01/05/11 20:15, Guy Hulbert wrote: On Wed, 2011-05-01 at 18:02 +0100, Jan Ingvoldstad wrote: On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 17:30, Guy Hulbertgwhulb...@eol.ca wrote: Rakudo is not listed here: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/ Fixing that is something I'd like to help with. Note that go was listed *before* it was announced. That tells me that the go authors are, in some small way, more serious about their project succeeding than perl6. So your suggestion to Gabor is to add the question: No. The subject changed ... Do you think that NOT listing Rakudo at shootout.alioth.debian.org means Rakudo is not a serious project? Or did you have some other point? Marketing. (This is the first time I've seen shootout.alioth.debian.org, I won't claim that it's not a serious shootout just because of that, BTW.) When go was announced a link to 'shootout' was in the announcement. I think I might have seen if before that but, if so, i'd forgotten so it was new to me at the time. What got me interested in perl6 was the april fools announcement about parrot ostensibly by Larry and Guido. Something like 10 years ago. I don't learn new programming languages unless I have something to do with it. I've been looking at what it would take to implement perl6/rakudo versions of the programs on 'shootout', and I think I can do it so I will try to get one or two of them running properly in the benchmarker. The benchmarking program can be downloaded (which I've done) and comes bundled with 2 or 3 python programs, one of which requires python 2.5 and I'm still on python 2.4 (don't ask). However I've figured out how to see the source for example programs, so I'll manually download all the perl5 and C ones and try to get the benchmarker going for those. It'll take me a little while ...
Re: Production Release - was Re: Questions for Survey about Perl
On Wed, 2011-05-01 at 20:51 +0300, Richard Hainsworth wrote: 'serious project' ??? For some 'serious' people, Perl6 is a 'serious project'. Concepts of 'serious' differ amongst reasonable people. Not a problem if your 'serious' aint my 'serious'. For programming languages, there are rankings by number of developers. A Historical Example DateNumber 19791 198016 198138 198285 1983??+2 1984??+50 1985500 19862,000 19874,000 198815,000 198950,000 1990150,000 1991400,000 Taken from the language author's Design and Evolution book. Chapter 7. My wife was sent on a course to learn this language in the early 1990s. So you have about 10 years to get started. -- --gh
