On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm proud to announce the August 2013 release of Rakudo Perl #67 "Bicycle". Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Parrot Virtual Machine (see <http://www.parrot.org>) and the Java Virtual Machine. The tarball for this release is available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/>.
Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star distribution[^1] --- it's announcing a new release of the compiler only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see <http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>. The Rakudo Perl compiler follows a monthly release cycle, with each release named after a Perl Mongers group. The August 2013 release is code-named after Bicycle.pm, probably the Perl Mongers group with the coolest t-shirts. Some of the changes in this release are outlined below: + "is default", "is dynamic", "of" and "will" traits on variables + assigning Nil restores the default value + CALLER::<$var> now only works on dynamic variables, as per spec. + improvements to concurrency/parallelism support, including Channel, select, KeyReducer and basic asynchronous file reading (JVM only) + "once" phaser implemented + reimplementation of Buf as a role, and addition of Blob and other sized Buf/Blob related types + ConfigureJVM.pl now takes --gen-nqp, easing the Rakudo on JVM build + printf now correctly handles big integers These are only some of the changes in this release. For a more detailed list, see "docs/ChangeLog". The development team thanks all of our contributors and sponsors for making Rakudo Perl possible, as well as those people who worked on Parrot, the Perl 6 test suite and the specification. The following people contributed to this release: Elizabeth Mattijsen, Jonathan Worthington, Moritz Lenz, Donald Hunter, Tobias Leich, Timo Paulssen, Solomon Foster, Tadeusz SoĊnierz, Marton Papp, ivanoff, TimToady, Mouq, Patrick R. Michaud, awwaiid If you would like to contribute, see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the <perl6-compiler@perl.org> mailing list, or ask on IRC \#perl6 on freenode. The next release of Rakudo (#68), is scheduled for September 19, 2013. A list of the other planned release dates and code names for future releases is available in the "docs/release_guide.pod" file. In general, Rakudo development releases are scheduled to occur soon after each Parrot monthly release. Parrot releases the third Tuesday of each month. On behalf of the development team, I encourage you to try the new release, to live life to its fullest, to cherish each moment, and to have fun. [^1]: What's the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo Star distribution? The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language. Nothing else. The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection of useful Perl 6 modules, a module installer, the most recent incarnation of the "Using Perl 6" book, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo compiler to enhance its utility. Rakudo Star is meant for early adopters who wish to explore what's possible with Rakudo Perl 6 and provide feedback on what works, what doesn't, and what else they would like to see included in the distribution.
