Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for 18-24 March, 2007

  This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists

     "'Course, if someone goes ahead and adds the Y combinator, one must
     naturally begin to wonder what the YY combinator would be... :-) "

     -- Larry Wall

     "Obviously it generates a function so anonymous that it can't even
     refer to itself. I call it the depressed existentialist solipsist
     operator."

     -- chromatic, in 'Y not <http://xrl.us/u23z>'


  Language

   Y not <http://xrl.us/u23z>

     Larry Wall announced the demise of ` ¥ `, which was not much lamented.
     Thomas Wittek suggested calling it `zip` and there was some discussion
     of whether it is better to use terms like `minmax` and `zip`, or to
     use symbols like `MM` and `ZZ`. Several jokes were made along the way.

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r13699 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/u232>

     A commit by Larry Wall replaced ¥ is replaced by Z. There was also a
     change with the `XX` operator, which became `X`.

   Relief for rw/ro <http://xrl.us/u233>

     Steve Lukas remarked that Larry Wall had asked for ideas about good
     names for various states of write access. He offered a proposal which
     involves indicating that the writeability can be described as
     variable, constant, or final. Dr. Ruud added a brief comment about the
     length of the term `variable`, which he didn't find to be too long.

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r13703 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/u238>

     A commit from Larry Wall clarified that a named argument may name
     either a label or a variable.

     Blair Sutton asked if the synopsis repository is publicly available,
     and if it is part of the Parrot or Pugs repository. The URL of the
     repository <http://xrl.us/tz5p> was posted.

  Parrot Porters

   [perl #29994] [BUG] "loadlib $P0, varname" not working correctly
   <http://xrl.us/u239>

     Some time ago, in ticket [perl #29994] <http://xrl.us/u6ue>, Jens
     Rieks reported an error in `imcc/parser_util.c`. Klaas-Jan Stol
     updated the ticket and noted that the loadlib op works on windows.
     However, another error was found: when loading a non-existent library,
     no exception is raised.

   [perl #41235] [PATCH] Add get_name() Method to Namespaces
   <http://xrl.us/u6hq>

     Earlier, chromatic created a patch for `get_name`, which Jerry Gay
     forwarded to RT to create ticket [perl #41235] <http://xrl.us/t9n7>.
     Jerry wanted to apply the patch before 0.4.8, but chromatic said that
     he had been waiting because Allison Randal wanted a deprecation cycle
     for the rename of `name()` to `get_name()`. Allison replied that she
     had made a note that it was deprecated (r17030) and said that the
     patch could be applied after the release.

   [perl #41237] [TODO] PMC Class name IDs will require a dot in front
   <http://xrl.us/ucnv>

     Klaas-Jan Stol reminded people that an issue had not been decided.

     Earlier, Jerry Gay created ticket [perl #41237] <http://xrl.us/t9n9>
     to address an item in DEPRECATED.pod about PMC Class name IDs. He felt
     that either it should use one syntax or the other, but not both.

     Allison Randal preferred eliminating the dot in classname IDs. Matt
     Diephouse, on the other hand, liked the dot. Klaas-Jan Stol added that
     the dot indicates that it is PIR not pure PASM.

     Allison thought that if Matt used it to disambiguate between types and
     local variables, it was a matter of sigils. She asked why put sigils
     on types instead of putting them in variables, and if a dot was the
     ideal sigil for types.

   [perl #41529] [BUG]: t/perl/Parrot_Distribution.t test failure
   <http://xrl.us/u24c>

     In ticket [perl #41529] <http://xrl.us/u6uf>, James Keenan reported
     that there was a new failure in `Parrot_Distribution.t`. Jerry Gay
     explained that the test exposes a bug in Parrot::Distribution, which
     classifies files as Perl even when they are not. He noted that failing
     tests had been used as a reminder of things which needed to be fixed,
     and this was still used to some extent, although there was a movement
     towards RT.

     The problem was resolved in r17069.

     There was some discussion about the difficulty of identifying the
     problem. Jerry Gay mentioned that he was working on refactoring
     Parrot::Distribution.

   in PIR, a BigInt is turning into a string against my will -- what am I
   doing wrong? <http://xrl.us/u24d>

     Eric Hanchrow reported a problem in r16999. Patrick R. Michaud offered
     some suggestions for correcting the code in question.

   [PATCH] #39615: [TODO] get_outer op not defined in PDDs
   <http://xrl.us/u24e>

     Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a patch which adds the description of
     `get_outer()` to PDD20.

   [PATCH] updates for docs/faq.pod <http://xrl.us/u24f>

     Klaas-Jan Stol made some updates to `faq.pod` which related to ticket
     [perl #41312] <http://xrl.us/u2y6>.

   :anon flag bug? <http://xrl.us/u24g>

     Klaas-Jan Stol had a question relating to a fix for [perl #39196]
     <http://xrl.us/u6ug>. An anonymous subroutine was unexpectedly being
     found, and he wondered if that was a bug.

   [PATCH] retry pir/pasm updates for lang/pir <http://xrl.us/u24h>

     Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a patch to replace his earlier one.

   [PATCH] lang/PIR updates <http://xrl.us/u24i>

     A patch by Klaas-Jan Stol made some corrections to `languages/PIR`.

   [perl #41538] readline kills parrot on files missing a final newline
   <http://xrl.us/u24j>

     In ticket [perl #41538] <http://xrl.us/u6uh>, Joshua Isom described a
     problem which could be replicated by creating a small file without a
     newline at the end. chromatic applied it in r17103.

   Q on: #37542: [TODO] core - document behavior of multiple :load
   subpragmas in same compilation unit <http://xrl.us/u24n>

     Klaas-Jan Stol responded to ticket [perl #37542] <http://xrl.us/u6ui>
     which he claimed stated that the behavior of multiple subroutines
     marked with the `:load` subpragma in the same compilation unit is
     undefined. However, Klaas-Jan pointed out that it is defined and
     wondered if the ticket could be closed.

     Patrick R. Michaud agreed with closing the ticket. Will Coleda
     explained how Klaas-Jan could update the ticket directly.

   Preening the parrot for show <http://xrl.us/u24p>

     Nicholas Clark suggested that release versions of Parrot should have
     debugging flags off so that it will benchmark nicely. This came from a
     public discussion of the speed of the Ruby implementation.

     Tewk noted that the numbers generated by Cardinal are probably
     incorrect because the current implementation is very minimal.

     Joshua Isom wondered if it was best for the default core to be the
     slow core. Although this makes testing easier, it gives misleading
     benchmarks.

   [perl #40544] [NEW] Test for DOS line endings in Parrot text files
   <http://xrl.us/u24q>

     Earlier, in ticket [perl #40544] <http://xrl.us/so8x>, Paul Cochrane
     submitted a test which checks for DOS line endings in the Parrot
     distribution.

     Will Coleda recently noted that some of the problems are related to
     [perl #41485] <http://xrl.us/u3sb> and that when he sets the
     properties in his working copy, the tests succeed. Paul provided an
     update: he will be do a few commits which update the svn eol property.
     Because a large number of files will be affected, the update will done
     in a small time slot.

     As of r17102, it was fixed.

   [perl #41548] [Tcl] - internals tests failings <http://xrl.us/u24r>

     Will Coleda reported a failing test in [perl #41548]
     <http://xrl.us/u6uj>.

   [perl #41549] [PATCH] fixes :vtable pragma for .pbc files
   <http://xrl.us/u24s>

     In ticket [perl #41549] <http://xrl.us/u6uk>, Alek Storm submitted a
     patch in response to [perl #40626] <http://xrl.us/s5rj> and [perl
     #41364] <http://xrl.us/u3h4>. Jonathan Worthington planned to commit
     it.

   Deprecated ops: emit warning? <http://xrl.us/u24u>

     Klaas-Jan Stol noted that there are some operations which have been
     deprecated but which have not been listed in `DEPRECATED.pod`. He
     suggested adding a check which will emit a warning if an operator is
     deprecated.

   [PATCH] languages/lua lua.pg Grammar fixes <http://xrl.us/u24v>

     Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a patch for the Lua grammar file.

   Cross-compiling Parrot <http://xrl.us/u24w>

     Aldo Calpini resurrected comments from Dan Sugalski in 2004 which
     dealt with cross-compiling. In order to submit patches which do not
     break the existing code, he asked some questions about how people are
     using cross-compilation at the moment.

     Jerry Gay wanted to see some development in this field, and suggested
     an approach based upon test-driven development for configuration
     system changes. Joshua Isom remarked that Perl 5's configure is
     somewhat limited, and Perl 5 may not always be available. While Aldo
     agreed that Perl 5's configure is a bad way to go, he didn't see
     anything wrong with using Perl 5 as the tool to build. Allison Randal
     also indicated that reliance on Perl 5's configure would be a problem.
     She proposed that Aldo start with a proposal and patches.

     chromatic remarked that it would be nice to be able to put data files
     somewhere and have configure read those instead of probing the system.

   [perl #41557] [BUG] addparent established hierarchies don't work with
   .Super <http://xrl.us/u24y>

     Sam Vilain reported problems with inheritance which can result in the
     exception 'object has no parent'. Tests were added in r17031 to
     demonstrate the issue. This problem was explained in ticket [perl
     #41557] <http://xrl.us/u6um>.

   [perl #41558] [PATCH] Add ops summary doc generator <http://xrl.us/u24z>

     In ticket [perl #41558] <http://xrl.us/u6un>, Shawn M Moore submitted
     a patch which adds a new utility script to create a summary of all the
     operators.

   [perl #39196] [TODO] tests - need to test addmethod <http://xrl.us/u242>

     In ticket [perl #39196] <http://xrl.us/u6ug>, Klaas-Jan Stol submitted
     a patch which adds a test for `addmethod`.

   [perl #41569] [BUG] t/distro/file_metadata.t fails on win32
   <http://xrl.us/u244>

     In ticket [perl #41569] <http://xrl.us/u6uo>, Jerry Gay indicated a
     problem with a test which fails on Win32.

   Preliminary notes for 0.4.9 release <http://xrl.us/u245>

     In preparation for the 0.4.9 release, Patrick R. Michaud asked some
     questions of people who have previously worked on release management.
     Allison Randal, chromatic and Nuno Carvalho replied.

   [perl #41576] [BUG] t/pmc/pmethod_test.t fails on x86_64
   <http://xrl.us/u246>

     In ticket [perl #41576] <http://xrl.us/u6up>, Patrick R . Michaud
     reported a failure with `t/pmc/pmethod_test.t`.

   [perl #38983] [PDD] review PDD01_overview.pod <http://xrl.us/u248>

     Patrick R. Michaud reported in ticket [perl #38983]
     <http://xrl.us/u6uq> that he had changed the roadmap to refer to PDD01
     instead of the 'PLATFORMS' file which doesn't exist. However, PDD01 is
     still in draft status, so Patrick asked if it can be approved.

   [perl #41577] docs/ROADMAP.pod refers to python bytecode translator,
   pie-thon test suite <http://xrl.us/u25a>

     Patrick R . Michaud reported in ticket [perl #41577]
     <http://xrl.us/u6ur> that there are some points in the roadmap which
     may no longer be relevant. Allison Randal fixed them in r17210.

   [perl #41579] [BUG] t/pmc/ref.t, t/pmc/threads.t file with -C runcore
   <http://xrl.us/u25b>

     In ticket [perl #41579] <http://xrl.us/u6us>, Patrick R . Michaud
     reported two failing tests. chromatic confirmed that this was not
     restricted to x86_64.

   [perl #41583] Tail calls from within vtable methods broken
   <http://xrl.us/u25e>

     Bram Geron reported that tail calls within v-table methods are broken.
     Ticket [perl #41583] <http://xrl.us/u6ut> tracks this bug.

   [perl #41584] [TODO] Update RELEASE_INSTRUCTIONS with details for
   updating the website <http://xrl.us/u25f>

     In ticket [perl #41584] <http://xrl.us/u6uu>, Patrick R . Michaud
     noted that the release instructions should include a reminder to
     update the website.

   [PATCH] PDD16 NCI update with simple example <http://xrl.us/u25g>

     Klaas-Jan Stol submitted a patch which contains a simple example which
     can be added to PDD16. chromatic applied it in r17164.

   [perl #41455] [NEW] and [PATCH]: tools/build/ops2pm.pl refactored
   <http://xrl.us/u6hr>

     Earlier, James Keenan noted that he had some new patches for tests.
     They were added in r17061. The patches can be seen in [perl #41455]
     <http://xrl.us/u6uv>.

   [perl #41597] [PATCH] replacing explicit access to $^O in Configure
   <http://xrl.us/u6ht>

     Aldo Calpini submitted a patch to ticket [perl #41597]
     <http://xrl.us/u6uw>. This patch adds an 'osname' key to Parrot's
     configuration data, which is used in the configure process.

  Compiler

   Parrot 0.4.9 released! <http://xrl.us/u25h>

     Patrick R. Michaud announced the release of Parrot 0.4.9, "Socorro".

  cvs-parrot

   [svn:parrot] r17107 - trunk/src/stm <http://xrl.us/u6ux>

     chromatic objected to a patch which removed access to a null pointer
     in `stm/backend.c`. He thought that the best solution would be to have
     the PMC `init()` throw an exception.

     Allison Randal thought that it made sense to return with no action.
     `reply_extracted` already has the same check, and `mark_extracted`
     should have the check added. Jerry Gay added it in r17159.

  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/>