Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for 3-9 December, 2006

  This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists

     "Your faithful Dynamic Environmentalist"

     -- closing signature of Bob Rogers in 'RFC: Proposal for dynamic
     binding <http://xrl.us/tc8i>'


  Language

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r13487 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/trh9>

     Last week, A commit from Larry Wall related to expanding tabs led TSa
     to ask if array equivalence should be defined in terms of Bags. Larry
     replied that he felt most people would prefer to look at Sets and Bags
     as Hashes, so he will not include Sets and Bags in the smartmatching
     table. Darren Duncan also felt that the current summary in Synopsis 6
     was adequate.

     This week, TSa responded to Darren's request that any change requests
     be explained in detail. According to TSa, the intent was not to change
     the synopsis but to have a few points clarified on list, such as the
     subtype relationship between Set and Bag. TSa also asked if KeyHash,
     KeySet and KeyBag are forced in to sigiled variables. Darren replied
     that he would expect that they would work like hashes.

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r13488 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/tria>

     In this commit, Larry Wall clarified the relationship between Set/Bag
     and KeyHash.

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r13489 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/trib>

     Larry Wall elaborated on `gather`, which has been modified to be more
     like `do` in that it allows any statement.

   Gather/Take and threads <http://xrl.us/trid>

     Given a gather block which spawns multiple threads, Joe Gottman wanted
     to know if it is guaranteed that no object returned is lost, given
     that the relative order of items returned is indeterminate.

  Parrot Porters

   RFC: Proposal for dynamic binding <http://xrl.us/tc8i>

     This thread was started by Bob Roger's proposal for dynamic binding.
     He compared two options, and later gave an analysis of a third (STM)
     at Leopold Toetsch's request.

     Last week, Allison Randal responded to the proposal with the question
     of why dynamic binding should only apply to globals. She stated that
     the proposed implementation was not being approved, but noted that one
     of Bob's ideas concerning threads was of particular interest and
     likely to be included at some point. Bob replied in depth to the
     points she raised and asked if he could improve the proposal or if he
     should give it up.

     This week there was further discussion between Allison and Bob.

   [perl #40958] [BUG] - can't iterate subclass of ResizablePMCArray
   <http://xrl.us/tgta>

     chromatic responded to ticket [perl #40958] <http://xrl.us/tgtb> by
     including a patch which demonstrates the problem in the iteration code
     within the PMC. He noted that this is not the correct fix.

   [perl #40966] [BUG] Parrot core dumps in perl6 (possible GC/pointer
   bug?) <http://xrl.us/tgtn>

     Earlier, Patrick R. Michaud reported a bug in ticket [perl #40966]
     <http://xrl.us/tgto>.

     This week, Matt Diephouse responded. He had seen the error in a
     different test, and identified the failing assertion. The problem
     seems to be that constant strings are being garbage collected too
     soon. He supplied a patch to not collect any constant PObj headers,
     but was not certain that was what should happen.

     Leopold Toetsch replied that if they were being collected, they were
     being initially created in different object pools and then stored as
     constants. He requested information about the origin and contents of
     the constant, in order to track down where it was being created.

   Initial feedback on PAST-pm, or Partridge <http://xrl.us/tm7j>

     Earlier, Allison Randal initiated a discussion on Partridge (PAST-pm)
     with a post of her comments on user experience and implementation.

     One subthread which developed dealt with a number of unrelated points.
     Leopold Toetsch joined Allison and Patrick R. Michaud in this thread.
     One of the topics involved Parrot limitations related to :init
     methods.

     This week, Allison responded to a proposal from Patrick and asked if
     he had thought further about the syntax for initialization. She also
     agreed with treating moving code generation out of POST node objects
     as low priority. Patrick replied to some of the points.

   [perl #41020] [PATCH] pmc2c.pl functionality extracted into separate
   package <http://xrl.us/tm72>

     Earlier, in ticket [perl #41020] <http://xrl.us/tm7w>, James Keenan
     supplied a patch to make `pmc2c.pl` easier to test. This involved
     putting most of the subroutines in a new package. He fixed a problem
     with `GetOptions` but thought there were additional corrections to be
     made.

     This week, James wrote that he had underestimated the challenges in
     testing Parrot build tools. He explained the problem, which involved
     the files which exist and the state of the system at the time that the
     tests are run, and concluded by asking what was the goal of testing
     the build tools.

   [PATCH] tru64: compile (src/nci.c) and runtime (src/memory.c)
   <http://xrl.us/trie>

     Jarkko Hietaniemi submitted two patches. One was to allow the Parrot
     trunk to compile in Tru64, and the second one was to eliminate some
     core dumps.

   [perl #41044] use warnings not clean <http://xrl.us/trig>

     In ticket [perl #41044] <http://xrl.us/trih>, Will Coleda reported a
     problem with loading the platform and local hints file.

   [perl #41047] [BUG] :multi doesn't work with :outer <http://xrl.us/trii>

     Patrick R. Michaud created ticket [perl #41047] <http://xrl.us/trij>
     to report an error with the `:multi` pragma when `:outer` is present.
     Matt Diephouse reported it fixed in r15971.

   [perl #41051] [PATCH]: Configure.pl: Spell out what 'ICU' means
   <http://xrl.us/trik>

     James Keenan created ticket [perl #41051] <http://xrl.us/trim> to
     request that the POD in `Configure.pl` use 'International Components
     for Unicode' instead of 'ICU' for clarity. Will Coleda applied the
     patch as r16021.

   [perl #41052] [PATCH]: docs/configuration.pod: Small grammatical
   corrections <http://xrl.us/trin>

     In ticket [perl #41052] <http://xrl.us/trio>, James Keenan included a
     patch to correct grammar in `docs/configuration.pod`.

   Bug Day! <http://xrl.us/trip>

     chromatic suggested a virtual gathering on the 16th in #parrot. The
     purpose of the meeting is to examine the bug database to verify, fix,
     or resolve issues. Additionally, this meeting would serve to help
     curious newcomers get started. Lee Duhem felt that some examples could
     be cleaned up to make it easier for people to get started.

   [perl #41053] [TODO] More useful dumping of Env PMC <http://xrl.us/triq>

     Bernhard Schmalhofer thought that generic Hash dumping functionality
     would make it easier to see things such as the Env PMC. This request
     was ticket [perl #41053] <http://xrl.us/trir>.

   [svn:parrot-pdd] r16036 - trunk/docs/pdds/clip <http://xrl.us/tris>

     Allison Randal added additional notes to the overview PDD on the
     target platforms for Parrot. The requirement for the 1.0 release of
     Parrot is that it be supported on major versions of Linux, BSD, Mac OS
     X and Windows.

   [perl #41055] [BUG]: 'Argument is not numeric' warning in Darwin
   configuration <http://xrl.us/trit>

     In ticket [perl #41055] <http://xrl.us/triu>, James Keenan registered
     a bug with running `perl Configure.pl`, which seemed to be related to
     having a 3-level version number.

  Acknowlegements

     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/>