Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6

2010-07-29 Thread Patrick R. Michaud
On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
announce the July 2010 release of Rakudo Star, a useful and usable
distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2010 release is
available from http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads.

Rakudo Star is aimed at early adopters of Perl 6.  We know that
it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
and exploring a great new language.  These Star releases are
intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.

In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
(Perl 6) and specific implementations of the language such as
Rakudo Perl.  Rakudo Star is a distribution that includes
release #31 of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.6.0 of
the Parrot Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.  We
plan to make Rakudo Star releases on a monthly schedule, with
occasional special releases in response to important bugfixes or
changes.

Some of the many cool Perl 6 features that are available in this
release of Rakudo Star:
  * Perl 6 grammars and regexes
  * formal parameter lists and signatures
  * metaoperators
  * gradual typing
  * a powerful object model, including roles and classes
  * lazy list evaluation
  * multiple dispatch
  * smart matching
  * junctions and autothreading
  * operator overloading (limited forms for now)
  * introspection
  * currying
  * a rich library of builtin operators, functions, and types
  * an interactive read-evaluation-print loop
  * Unicode at the codepoint level
  * resumable exceptions

There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
Perl 6.0.0 or 1.0 release.  Some of the not-quite-there
features include:
  * nested package definitions
  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
  * typed arrays
  * macros
  * state variables
  * threads and concurrency
  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
  * backslash escapes in regex [...] character classes
  * non-blocking I/O
  * most of Synopsis 9
  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools

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.

See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.

Rakudo Star also bundles a number of modules; a partial list of
the modules provided by this release include:
  * Blizkost
  - enables some Perl 5 modules to be used from within Rakudo Perl 6
  * MiniDBI
  - a simple database interface for Rakudo Perl 6
  * Zavolaj
  - call C library functions from Rakudo Perl 6
  * SVG and SVG::Plot
  - create scalable vector graphics
  * HTTP::Daemon
  - a simple HTTP server
  * XML::Writer
  - generate XML
  * YAML
  - dump Perl 6 objects as YAML
  * Term::ANSIColor
  - color screen output using ANSI escape sequences
  * Test::Mock
  - create mock objects and check what methods were called
  * Math::Model
  - describe and run mathematical models
  * Config::INI
  - parse and write configuration files
  * File::Find
  - find files in a given directory
  * LWP::Simple
  - fetch resources from the web

These are not considered core Perl 6 modules, and as module
development for Perl 6 continues to mature, future releases
of Rakudo Star will likely come bundled with a different set
of modules. Deprecation policies for bundled modules will be
created over time, and other Perl 6 distributions may choose
different sets of modules or policies.  More information about
Perl 6 modules can be found at http://modules.perl6.org/.

Rakudo Star also contains a draft of a Perl 6 book -- see 
docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf 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.

Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
release of Rakudo Star will be on August 24, 2010.

[1] 

Re: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6

2010-07-29 Thread Xiao Yafeng
Congratulations!

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 8:23 PM, Patrick R. Michaud pmich...@pobox.com wrote:
 On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
 announce the July 2010 release of Rakudo Star, a useful and usable
 distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2010 release is
 available from http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads.

 Rakudo Star is aimed at early adopters of Perl 6.  We know that
 it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
 there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
 that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
 is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
 and exploring a great new language.  These Star releases are
 intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
 the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
 Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.

 In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language
 (Perl 6) and specific implementations of the language such as
 Rakudo Perl.  Rakudo Star is a distribution that includes
 release #31 of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.6.0 of
 the Parrot Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
 and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.  We
 plan to make Rakudo Star releases on a monthly schedule, with
 occasional special releases in response to important bugfixes or
 changes.

 Some of the many cool Perl 6 features that are available in this
 release of Rakudo Star:
  * Perl 6 grammars and regexes
  * formal parameter lists and signatures
  * metaoperators
  * gradual typing
  * a powerful object model, including roles and classes
  * lazy list evaluation
  * multiple dispatch
  * smart matching
  * junctions and autothreading
  * operator overloading (limited forms for now)
  * introspection
  * currying
  * a rich library of builtin operators, functions, and types
  * an interactive read-evaluation-print loop
  * Unicode at the codepoint level
  * resumable exceptions

 There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
 yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
 releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
 Perl 6.0.0 or 1.0 release.  Some of the not-quite-there
 features include:
  * nested package definitions
  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
  * typed arrays
  * macros
  * state variables
  * threads and concurrency
  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
  * backslash escapes in regex [...] character classes
  * non-blocking I/O
  * most of Synopsis 9
  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools

 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.

 See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about
 Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
 materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.

 Rakudo Star also bundles a number of modules; a partial list of
 the modules provided by this release include:
  * Blizkost
      - enables some Perl 5 modules to be used from within Rakudo Perl 6
  * MiniDBI
      - a simple database interface for Rakudo Perl 6
  * Zavolaj
      - call C library functions from Rakudo Perl 6
  * SVG and SVG::Plot
      - create scalable vector graphics
  * HTTP::Daemon
      - a simple HTTP server
  * XML::Writer
      - generate XML
  * YAML
      - dump Perl 6 objects as YAML
  * Term::ANSIColor
      - color screen output using ANSI escape sequences
  * Test::Mock
      - create mock objects and check what methods were called
  * Math::Model
      - describe and run mathematical models
  * Config::INI
      - parse and write configuration files
  * File::Find
      - find files in a given directory
  * LWP::Simple
      - fetch resources from the web

 These are not considered core Perl 6 modules, and as module
 development for Perl 6 continues to mature, future releases
 of Rakudo Star will likely come bundled with a different set
 of modules. Deprecation policies for bundled modules will be
 created over time, and other Perl 6 distributions may choose
 different sets of modules or policies.  More information about
 Perl 6 modules can be found at http://modules.perl6.org/.

 Rakudo Star also contains a draft of a Perl 6 book -- see
 docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf 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.

 Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
 in 

Re: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6

2010-07-29 Thread Gabor Szabo
Congratulations and thank you!



I have started to collect the links to the press coverage of the release:

http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6/index.cgi?rakudo_star_press

Please help me collect all the important links!

Gabor


Re: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6

2010-07-29 Thread Kiffin Gish
Good stuff, let's celebrate!

On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 07:23 -0500, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
 On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
 announce the July 2010 release of Rakudo Star, a useful and usable
 distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2010 release is
 available from http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads.
 
 Rakudo Star is aimed at early adopters of Perl 6.  We know that
 it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
 there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
 that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
 is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
 and exploring a great new language.  These Star releases are
 intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
 the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
 Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
 
 In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
 (Perl 6) and specific implementations of the language such as
 Rakudo Perl.  Rakudo Star is a distribution that includes
 release #31 of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.6.0 of
 the Parrot Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
 and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.  We
 plan to make Rakudo Star releases on a monthly schedule, with
 occasional special releases in response to important bugfixes or
 changes.
 
 Some of the many cool Perl 6 features that are available in this
 release of Rakudo Star:
   * Perl 6 grammars and regexes
   * formal parameter lists and signatures
   * metaoperators
   * gradual typing
   * a powerful object model, including roles and classes
   * lazy list evaluation
   * multiple dispatch
   * smart matching
   * junctions and autothreading
   * operator overloading (limited forms for now)
   * introspection
   * currying
   * a rich library of builtin operators, functions, and types
   * an interactive read-evaluation-print loop
   * Unicode at the codepoint level
   * resumable exceptions
 
 There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
 yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
 releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
 Perl 6.0.0 or 1.0 release.  Some of the not-quite-there
 features include:
   * nested package definitions
   * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
   * typed arrays
   * macros
   * state variables
   * threads and concurrency
   * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
   * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
   * interactive readline that understands Unicode
   * backslash escapes in regex [...] character classes
   * non-blocking I/O
   * most of Synopsis 9
   * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
 
 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.
 
 See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
 Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
 materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
 
 Rakudo Star also bundles a number of modules; a partial list of
 the modules provided by this release include:
   * Blizkost
   - enables some Perl 5 modules to be used from within Rakudo Perl 6
   * MiniDBI
   - a simple database interface for Rakudo Perl 6
   * Zavolaj
   - call C library functions from Rakudo Perl 6
   * SVG and SVG::Plot
   - create scalable vector graphics
   * HTTP::Daemon
   - a simple HTTP server
   * XML::Writer
   - generate XML
   * YAML
   - dump Perl 6 objects as YAML
   * Term::ANSIColor
   - color screen output using ANSI escape sequences
   * Test::Mock
   - create mock objects and check what methods were called
   * Math::Model
   - describe and run mathematical models
   * Config::INI
   - parse and write configuration files
   * File::Find
   - find files in a given directory
   * LWP::Simple
   - fetch resources from the web
 
 These are not considered core Perl 6 modules, and as module
 development for Perl 6 continues to mature, future releases
 of Rakudo Star will likely come bundled with a different set
 of modules. Deprecation policies for bundled modules will be
 created over time, and other Perl 6 distributions may choose
 different sets of modules or policies.  More information about
 Perl 6 modules can be found at http://modules.perl6.org/.
 
 Rakudo Star also contains a draft of a Perl 6 book -- see 
 docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf 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.
 
 Rakudo Star 

Re: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, early adopter distribution of Perl 6

2010-07-29 Thread Jerome Quelin
On 10/07/29 07:23 -0500, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
 On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
 announce the July 2010 release of Rakudo Star, a useful and usable
 distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2010 release is
 available from http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads.

congratulations, but help me help you guys.

i'm currently shipping parrot and rakudo in mandriva. what should i do
regarding rakudo-star:
  - juste update rakudo to rakudo-star
  - create a new package rakudo-star, alongside rakudo

if the former, will future monthly rakudo releases feature everything
that rakudo* is shipping? (modules, etc.)
if the latter, can rakudo-star use rakudo as its perl6 interpreter, and
only installs addons?

thanks,
jérôme 
-- 
jque...@gmail.com