This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists
": This mornings up date proposed
"Now the da rn spam fi1ters are chang.ng my spelling to look like
sp*m. Yeah, that's the 4icket... :)"
-- Larry Wall, in 'Enhancing array indices <http://xrl.us/uqks>'
Language
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13540 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqkd>
A commit from Larry Wall reorganized S03. This led Nicholas Clark to
comment that the sequencing operator is not defined. He had a few
other notes about the commit. John Macdonald responded to Nicholas's
question "Is it defined that `$a + $b` evaluates the arguments in any
particular order?" by stating that in C, it is deliberately left
undefined to allow the code generator more flexibility. Aaron Crane
also spoke up, further explaining how C functions.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13543 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqkf>
In this commit, Larry Wall clarified `gather` and `take`. Gaal Yahas
wanted to know what it means for `take` to be evaluated in void
context. He included some example code and asked what the result would
be.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13545 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqkh>
Larry Wall applied some clarifications which were suggested by Gaal
Yahas. Gaal, however, had some more questions. This concerned `gather`
in S04. These were addressed in Larry's next commit.
Typology of auto*crement <http://xrl.us/uqkm>
Larry Wall replied to a comment by TSa in another thread, wherein TSa
wondered if `++` and `--` coerce Nums to Ints. Larry stated that since
a Str remains a Str in a similar situation, the Num should also retain
its type. One exception that he could see would be that incrementing
an Undef would create an Int.
In thread 'Int-to-Num autocoercion <http://xrl.us/uqkn>', Larry
expanded on how coercions are handled in functions. He said that Num
to Int autocoercion is an explicit exception which is expected by Perl
5 programmers, and Str to Num (and the inverse) are also done
automatically at times. Larry further explained that there had been
numerous discussions on the subject, and the general feeling is that
exotic types should not autocoerce unless a multi has been declared to
handle the situation.
TSa made a reference to the long-running 'Numeric Semantics
<http://xrl.us/t3o7>' to discuss how auto-coercion would work with
`floor`. Darren Duncan replied that a `floor` would return an Int by
definition, so that it would in fact be a way of explicitly
converting.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13549 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqko>
Larry Wall made a commit which disabled negative subscript 'dwimmery'
for shaped arrays, which can now take `+` and `-` operators. He then
wondered if a multidimensional `Whatever (**)` would mean the same
thing in "whatever" dimensions.
David Green noted that the subject of ordinals had come up some time
ago, and quoted a message from Larry dating back to 2004. He added his
thoughts to the subject as well.
Blair Sutton felt that Perl 6 should stick with 0 as the first element
of a list to avoid alienating programmers from most other languages.
He thought that it could be adjusted by a user-defined Parrot grammar
for those who didn't like the traditional starting value, although he
had personally never required that feature.
Smylers was of the opinion that a pragma is overkill, and a global
variable would be sufficient. Jonathan Scott Duff responded that a
pragma would be useful to Pascal or Fortran programmers, and therefore
it would be handy to have a pragma. Rafael Garcia-Suarez added that
`$[` is a pragma in Perl 5.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13550 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqkp>
Larry Wall made a commit concerning `*+` versus `*-` in subscripts.
TSa replied that the distinction between the cases would be that they
dispatch to different functions: `*` to `postcircumfix`, `*+` to
`infix:<+>` and `*-` to `infix:<->`. TSa asked some questions based
upon this observation.
Larry responded that he did not want Whatever to package the array. He
felt that in TSa's example, it would be necessary to dispatch to
Whatever and let the Whatever code extract relevant information
relating to `*`. TSa requested further information.
Enhancing array indices <http://xrl.us/uqks>
Jonathan Lang wondered if it would be possible to get a
single-character symbol which could be used in an array index to refer
to its shape, for example something like [EMAIL PROTECTED] Larry Wall
replied that a recent suggestion was to use a syntax like [EMAIL PROTECTED]
There was further discussion on syntax possibilities, with Jonathan,
Darren Duncan and TSa joining the thread. Darren proposed getting rid
of negative subscripts and using only terms like [EMAIL PROTECTED], which
he felt had the advantage of being more consistent (for shaped and
unshaped arrays), and easier to learn.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13555 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqkv>
Although he admitted that the month of Nob is cute, Larry Wall
nevertheless changed S01's last modified date to Nov. In a followup
commit, Larry changed the date to Jan.
[svn:perl6-synopsis] r13564 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/uqk6>
Larry Wall made a commit to allow colon pair syntax for a method-like
sort of filetest. Smylers liked the changes, but was concerned about
`filename.TEST` because there are only so many permutations of the
word available for testing frameworks. Larry listed a host of other
possible names, and was leaning toward `STATUS`.
Parrot Porters
[perl #41364] [PATCH] Fixed object vtable method overrides in PIR
<http://xrl.us/uqma>
Alek Storm submitted a patch as ticket [perl #41364]
<http://xrl.us/u3h4>. The patch allows object vtable method overrides
for a number routines, such as `find_method` and `get_attr`. He also
wondered if the double-underscore method of overriding could be
deprecated now that there is the :vtable flag. Patrick R. Michaud
responded that the deprecation cannot take place until ticket [perl
#40626] <http://xrl.us/s5rj> is resolved.
[PATCH] PDD22 spec notes and ParrotIO tests <http://xrl.us/uqmc>
Jerry Gay mentioned that he had written tests for the ParrotIO object,
which he included as a patch. He also had some questions about PDD 22.
Allison Randal answered the questions.
Porting parrot on PDA <http://xrl.us/uqmd>
Aldo Calpini wrote of an interest in porting Parrot to the PocketPC.
CeGCC is a Windows port of gcc which produces ARM executable code. The
first attempt at porting went well. A report of the procedure was
included in the post.
[perl #41371] [TODO] review parrot roles & responsibilies doc before
next release <http://xrl.us/uqme>
In ticket [perl #41371] <http://xrl.us/u3h5>, Jerry Gay noted that in
r16834 he had committed `docs/roles_responsibilities.pod`. He asked
project members to review it before the 0.4.9 release.
[perl #41373] Need test for Clone of HLL info <http://xrl.us/uqmf>
Will Coleda created ticket [perl #41373] <http://xrl.us/u3h6> to
request a test to replace the ones marked 'todo' which relied on Perl
5 PMCs.
[perl #41374] test MMD with non-perl PMCs <http://xrl.us/uqmg>
Ticket [perl #41374] <http://xrl.us/u3h7>, initiated by Will Coleda,
requested tests for MMD which don't rely on Perl PMCs.
Language Testing <http://xrl.us/uqmh>
Klaas-Jan Stol remarked that he was trying to set up a test harness
for PIR. It appeared that the module `PIR.pm` was not used, and he was
unable to find documents on how to set it up. He offered to patch the
compiler FAQ once someone explains it to him.
Will Coleda explained that the problem was with the name of the
language, with 'PIR' being reserved for internal testing. Therefore
either `lib/Parrot/Test.pm` would require modification, or the
language should be renamed, for instance to 'PIR_PGE'. With Will's
advice Klaas-Jan was able to get it working.
[PATCH] Updates for languages/PIR <http://xrl.us/uqmi>
Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a patch to improve PIR. It includes a test
suite, and corrections to several other files. Later, in '[PATCH]
languages/PIR tests <http://xrl.us/uqmj>', and '[PATCH] languages/PIR
more testing and fixing <http://xrl.us/uqmo>', he posted additional
tests and corrections. Later there was also '[PATCH] PIR updates
<http://xrl.us/uqmv>', which was applied as r16892.
What Skills Do We Need to Finish Parrot? <http://xrl.us/uqmk>
James E Keenan asked some questions with the intention of determining
what part of Parrot he should focus on and try to encourage others to
look at. He asked what code remains to be written before an alpha
release can be made, and what skills are needed to produce that code.
Allison Randal replied that the systems needing the most work are: IO,
Events, Threads, Compiler tools interface, Object support, and
Exceptions. She felt people with C skills are useful, as are people
with general experience in dynamic languages.
James then asked what the learning curve is for PIR. chromatic
answered that the 'Parrot Essentials' book is still useful, although
it is missing some of the more advanced features. He thought that it
might be worth asking O'Reilly if the tutorial section could be
expanded into public documentation, as there's currently no tutorial
on PIR.
[perl #41380] [PATCH]: docs/roles_responsibilities.pod: Minor
grammatical corrections <http://xrl.us/uqmm>
James Keenan submitted a patch to the roles and responsibilities file.
It corrected punctuation errors and was applied as r16850. The patch
was ticket [perl #41380] <http://xrl.us/u3h8>.
On PASM and PIR registers <http://xrl.us/uqmn>
Klaas-Jan Stol wondered if PASM registers are still needed, except for
backwards compatibility, now that there are PIR registers. Leopold
Toetsch replied that PASM registers are physically allocated in the
Parrot virtual machine, whereas PIR registers are virtual registers.
Both types are needed.
[perl #41386] MANIFEST must die. <http://xrl.us/uqmp>
Will Coleda created ticket [perl #41386] <http://xrl.us/u3h9> to
express his opinion that `MANIFEST` should not be part of the
repository. He pointed out that the purpose of this file is to make
sure that the general release isn't missing any files, something you
already know to be true when you are working with a repository. He
suggested creating it when the release is generated.
Allison Randal disagreed. She believes that the purpose of a MANIFEST
is to tell you which files should be included in a distribution. She
thought `MANIFEST.skip`, on the other hand, could be generated from
the `svn:ignore` keyword before the distribution is created.
[perl #41387] perlcritic.t picking up non-perl files
<http://xrl.us/uqmr>
In ticket [perl #41387] <http://xrl.us/u3ia>, Paul Cochrane reported
that the new `Parrot::Distribution` module was finding some files
which weren't actually Perl language files. This was later resolved by
chromatic in r17069.
[perl #41388] Parrot::Distribution doesn't exclude all external perl
modules <http://xrl.us/uqms>
In ticket [perl #41388] <http://xrl.us/u3ib>, Paul Cochrane reported
that the new `Parrot::Distribution` module is not exempting external
Perl modules such as Pod::Simple from its coding standards check.
PBC to C Converter <http://xrl.us/uqmt>
chromatic included a quick Perl program which writes a C program which
makes a self-contained executable for a Parrot program. He thought
that it was fairly cross-platform compatible, although there could be
an issue with big-endian processors.
PMC Tools Test Failure <http://xrl.us/uqmu>
chromatic reported a failure with the buildtools tests following a
`make realclean` and a Configure. James E Keenan responded that he's
experienced it infrequently and thinks that it is a poorly-designed
test rather than a real failure. There was a brief discussion on how
to improve the test, with James suggesting that perhaps someone who
was involved with the original development of `pmc2c.pl` could explain
what is happening in the `DO_A_DUMP` loop.
Q on PIR vs PASM <http://xrl.us/uqmw>
Klaas-Jan Stol gave a brief history of how IMCC started, noting that
it was eventually merged with Parrot as its parser, and since that
time there have been several additions. He wondered if it is still the
case that every PIR construct also has a PASM form, and if every PIR
construct can be directly translated to PASM. Allison Randal replied
that that was the ideal situation, but in practice many tests are
written in PIR, so there may not be complete coverage for the PASM
syntax versions.
[PATCH] Update copyright for Parrot --version <http://xrl.us/uqmx>
A patch by Klaas-Jan Stol contains a correction to make `parrot
--version` give a copyright range of '2001-2007' instead of
'2001-2006'.
Copyright chang script and test <http://xrl.us/uqmy>
Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a script which checks all files for the last
changed date and updates the copyright notice in the file. The second
is a test which finds files which have out-of-date copyright notices.
chromatic replied that he had a couple of ideas for the script and
would take a look at them soon.
Users
take()'s return value <http://xrl.us/uqm2>
Gabriele Renzi wanted to know why `take` inside of a gather structure
returns undef instead of a return value. Carl M??sak had been wondering
the same thing. Larry Wall couldn't remember why it hadn't been added
to the specification, and put it in S04.
Acknowledgements
This summary was prepared using Mail::Summary::Tools
<http://xrl.us/qvno>, 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/onlamp/blog/>
See Also
* Perl Foundation activities <http://blog.perlfoundation.org>
* Perl 6 Development <http://dev.perl.org/perl6>
* Planet Perl Six <http://planetsix.perlfoundation.org/>
