On Sun, Feb 25, 2007 at 09:42:22AM +0300, Richard Hainsworth wrote: : When does the specification of perl6 come to an end? Are there criteria : or milestones which define that the perl6 specification stage is at an end?
It seems you are presuming a Waterfall model of development here. We're not doing the Waterfall, we're doing the Whirlpool, where the strange attractor whirls around with feedback at many levels but eventually converges on something in the middle. In other words, a whirlpool sucks, but the trick is to position your whirlpool over your intended destination, and you'll eventually get there, though perhaps a bit dizzier than you'd like. : I can see that setting a time line is not easy because the effort is : volunteer based, but what about a "conceptual" end? The problem with the Waterfall chart is that is assumes the designers are smart enough to design something in the absence of feedback from the implementors. I'm certainly not smart enough to do that. Many of the recent design changes have been driven by the problems we find while implementing. I'm not primarily speaking of syntactic problems here, but semantic and pragmatic problems. We're fixing some things that are not as simple as they could be, and other things that are not as *complicated* as they should be. Often both of those things are happening with the same design change, but at different levels. For instance, on one level, the recent decision to apply multi semantics to tokens and rules makes them seem more complicated, but it also unifies the notion of multiple dispatch across more categories, and makes it much easier to write derived grammars that can override part of a named rule. This is something I didn't realize till I started writing the grammar of Perl 6 in Perl 6 a few weeks ago. : Perhaps there could be a perl6.0 specification, with further changes : (syntactic sugar, new operators, renaming operators, etc) being : assigned/incorporated into a perl6.1 specification, etc. Sugar is not really the issue here. We'll feel free to change the sugar willy nilly right up until the time 6.0.0 officially rolls out the door. When 6.0.0 is out the door, then we officially start worrying about backward compatibility, but not before. My primary concern right now is to make sure everyone is converging on a workable *semantic* model. : I ask because I want to use perl6 for real things. How shocking! :-) : Which means I need : the help of tutorials and existing code to see how to use the richness : of the language for the things I want, and to be able to use existing : perl5 CPAN modules. For I am not a guru or lambdacamel, who can grok the : C and Haskell and make things work that dont. There are lots of things we can use help with that don't involve knowing C or Haskell. Shoot, *I* don't know Haskell, and I've already learned it several times. Why do you thing I'm writing the grammar in Perl 6? :-) : But while perl6 continues : its evolution, without a tangible end, few are going to dedicate time : and effort to write documentation for such as me. (eg. How out of date : are the Exegesis files?) I agree that it takes a certain amount of vision to see the promised land before we get there. I suppose it's only natural that people wandering in the desert for 40 years will grumble a bit and maybe set up a golden calf or two, or attempt to march into the promised land on their own when they think it's right. But I must confess to feeling a great deal of sympathy for Moses occasionally. : pugs is great, so far as it goes (only the simplest perl5 modules can be : accessed and sometimes only in a roundabout way - I've written a simple : test that kills pugs dead, which arose when I tried to use a perl5 module). Pugs is manna from heaven to keep us on our feet, but it's not normal food. : While perl6 remains unstable in its specification (or is perceived to be : that way) and is looking (from outside a select group?) like a unending : road, wont this act as a deterrent to those who want to help hack it : into existence, usefulness and stability? As long as Joshua and Caleb see the promised land for what it really is, I don't worry too much about what other ten spies think. The right people will decide to work on Perl 6 at the right time if the vision is right. Larry
