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 dissemination of, or the taking of any action in reliance on, the information contained in or attached to this message is prohibited. 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