Perl 6 Summary for 2004-01-03 through 2004-01-11
Welcome to another Perl 6 summary. In this summary, we will explore such
thrilling issues as multi-dimensional slices of Chinese food. After all,
the amount of sauce any piece of Chinese food can absorb is proportional
to its surface area, which is a direct function of the number of
dimensions in which it is sliced (provided that we ignore degenerate
cases like fractal cuts of Peking duck).
Perl 6 Language
1x6 vs 6
Craig DeForest wondered how to disambiguate a 1x6 2D array slice from a
6 element 1D array slice. He suggested a syntax inspired by PDL. Larry
admitted to not having examined this particular issue and stated that he
was open to suggestions. Some suggestions arrived.
<http://xrl.us/eout>
code as comment
Stéphane Payrard wanted to know if there is an easy way to alias
arguments to a function. Thus allowing a longer version for readability
when calling the function and a short version inside the function. Larry
suggested "$s is named<subject>", which I like. The thread then devolved
into punning in French.
<http://xrl.us/eouu> -- main thread on p6l
<http://xrl.us/eouv> -- initial post on p6c
Perl 6 Compiler
Pascal -> Pcode -> Parrot -> Profit
Sven Schubert asked about the feasibility of putting Pascal on Parrot.
He noted that with the infrastructure mentioned in "Perl 6 and Parrot
Essentials" the problem would not be too bad. Apparently "Essentials"
makes a few promises that we have yet to live up to. But we are working
towards it. In the mean time, Stéphane Payrard suggested a way for him
to kill to bird with one stone: Pcode.
<http://xrl.us/eouw> -- Pcode suggestion
<http://xrl.us/eoux> -- initial post
Grammar improvements
Luke Blanshard submitted some rules for Perl6::Grammar. Luke Palmer
committed a slight variantion of his work, and the hacking commences...
<http://xrl.us/eouy>
Parrot
pop_pad
Peter Christopher wondered why pop_pad had not been implemented last
week. This week Leo implemented it and asked for tests.
<http://xrl.us/eouz>
Resizable arrays
Simon Glover asked why ResizablePMCArray was so different from all of it
Resizable*Array bretheren. The answer is the Leo improved it. This
brings up an obvious task for someone looking for a reasonably friendly
chunk of Parrot to work on. Rationalizing the implementation of the
various Resizable*Arrays would probably be a good task for a novice
looking to dig into something. Perhaps one who is on winter break...
<http://xrl.us/eou2>
Parrot 0.1.1 nci troubles
Ian Joyce noticed that parrot 0.1.1 was having some trouble with nci.t.
Leo admitted that this was the case, but it is fixed in CVS.
<http://xrl.us/eou3>
test or benchmark
Nicholas Clark wondered if resizablestringarray.t was actually a
benchmark, because it had a big number which was really hurting his poor
machine. Simon Glover admitted to the copy paste error.
<http://xrl.us/eou4>
x86 solaris 2.5.1 and 2.7
Andy Bach and Nicholas Clark worked towards getting parrot happier on
the aforementioned architecture. This thread seemed to peter out when
Nicholas asked "how do we run a callback unconditionally after
gccversion is known, independent of its value?".
<http://xrl.us/eou5>
VTABLE_call_method
Leo and Sam had a disagreement about whether a call_method vtable would
make sense. I think that we are waiting for higher intervention...
<http://xrl.us/eou6>
updated perlhist.txt
Will Coleda applied Bernhard's patch updating perlhist.txt and
streams.t.
<http://xrl.us/eou7>
Warnock Warnocked
Will Coleda applied the long Warnocked update to Warnock's contact
information with only a trace of irony.
<http://xrl.us/eou8>
gcov of perlarray.pmc reaches 100%
Simon Glover got perlarray.pmc to have full test coverage. Nifty. Some
brave soul (possibly fitting an earlier description) should try this
with the Fixed*Arrays...
<http://xrl.us/eou9>
Parrot under Solaris 9
Nicholas Clark, Andy Doughery, and Christian Aperghis-Tramoni all tried
to convince Parrot to work on Solaris. They are brave souls.
<http://xrl.us/eova>
parrot-config updates
Peter Christopher asked questions about the parrot-config.imc. He also
provided an initial solution.
<http://xrl.us/eovb> -- questions
<http://xrl.us/eovc> -- solutions
Key Question
Simon Glover noticed some bad behavior with respect to Key PMCs. Leo and
Sam both admitted that it was bad and that some work needed to be done.
<http://xrl.us/eovd>
Parrot PDL
Bernhard Schmalhofer posted a pointer to PDL. Luke Palmer pondered
Piddles as Parrot PMCs. Craig DeForest proposed a path passing through
PDL's PP and pausing at Parrot. (Parenthetically, perhaps the
preponderance of Ps in Perl, Parrot, and Python should push me to
alliterate with another available letter.)
<http://xrl.us/eove>
Parrot Syntax Engine
Henrik Gulbrandsen introduced the powerful Parrot Syntax Engine. Leo
asked a few questions to which Henrik provided answers. All in all, it
looks really cool and makes me a little jealous that I did not develop
the Tomita algorithm first.
<http://xrl.us/eovf>
s/libnci.so/libnci_test.so/g
Bernhard Schmalhofer moved libnci.so to libnci_test.so, as it really is
for testing. Leo applied it.
<http://xrl.us/eovg>
segfaulting readline
Matt Diephouse managed to segfault Parrot using readline. Leo fixed it.
Matt pointed out a new bug that it introduced.
<http://xrl.us/eovh>
substrings of invalid ranges
Matt Diephouse noticed that taking a substring of an invalid range had
odd results. Simor Glover provided a bunch of tests for it. Leo applied
the patch, but mentioned that these corner cases needed to be hammered
out authoritatively.
<http://xrl.us/eovi>
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