Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for 25-31 March, 2007

Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary

  This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists

     "I don't think that it's possible to make this non-conformity a fatal
     heresy :-(
     (gcc --spanish-inquisition)"

     -- Nicholas Clark in '[perl #42110] [PATCH] Returning values from void
     functions <http://xrl.us/vrot>'


  Language

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r14359 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/vroe>

     A commit by Larry Wall introduced user-definable array indexing.
     Darren Duncan wondered how one could declare an anonymous
     multidimensional array value which is compatible with the system Larry
     introduced. Larry explained that the semicolon notation is intended
     for slicing subscripts, which are two-dimensional, and it is therefore
     convenient to represent one dimension with a semicolon. There was
     further discussion on the syntax.

   [svn:perl6-synopsis] r14354 - doc/trunk/design/syn <http://xrl.us/vsas>

     A commit by Larry Wall made all punctuation potentially meta.

  Parrot Porters

   [perl #41837] [PATCH] integer overflow in include/parrot/sub.h
   <http://xrl.us/vdnz>

     Ticket [perl #41837] <http://xrl.us/vk9u> contained a patch which was
     required for 32-bit Solaris compilers. It was applied as r17853.

   [perl #42045] [PATCH] add return statement to clone in iterator.pmc
   <http://xrl.us/vrop>

     Ticket [perl #42045] <http://xrl.us/vtfx> includes a patch from
     Klaas-Jan Stol which adds a return statement which had been forgotten.
     The patch was applied as r17794.

   [perl #42082] [BUG]: Configure.pl: Misspecified option; 2 non-valid
   options documented <http://xrl.us/vroq>

     James Keenan explained that refactoring in `Configure.pl` had exposed
     two bugs in the file. He submitted a patch in ticket [perl #42082]
     <http://xrl.us/vtfy> which corrects the problems in the trunk. Joshua
     Isom had some questions about the supposed bugs; James explained why
     he considered them problems. Eventually the patch was applied as
     r17899.

   Syntax for Constructing new Objects (and classes?) <http://xrl.us/vror>

     This thread began with Klaas-Jan Stol asking about the syntax for
     constructing new objects because he thought that it was going to be
     changed. Allison Randal replied with examples of the two proposals for
     the new syntax.

     This led Alek Storm to ask if `new()` would be a vtable method or a
     PCCMETHOD. Jonathan Worthington confirmed that it is a PCCMETHOD.
     Allison elaborated that it is a class method.

   [perl #37997] r10604 build failure on Cygwin <http://xrl.us/vros>

     In ticket [perl #37997] <http://xrl.us/vtfz>, Ron Blaschke reported
     that `make test` fails on Cygwin for r10604, whereas r17772 builds
     without a problem. Joshua Gatcomb expressed his surprise, as he had
     not heard of anyone getting Parrot to work on Cygwin for several
     months.

     Eric Hanchrow offered to occasionally do a test build on his Cygwin
     system. Bernhard Schmalhofer suggested that Eric use the smoke system
     as documented in `docs/tests.pod`. Eric later reported that he could
     not get r17772 working. Paul Cochrane seconded Eric's report. Ron
     suggested using the absolute path for PATH, rather than just
     `blib/lib`. Eric got a bit further using this approach, but then he
     had another failure.

     Ron also noted that a few of the stm tests hang, which prevents
     smoking on Cygwin. chromatic asked if this was `t/pmc/stmlog.t`, but
     Ron thought it was `t/stm/queue.t` and `t/stm/runtime.t`.

   [perl #42110] [PATCH] Returning values from void functions
   <http://xrl.us/vrot>

     Steve Peters reported that a couple of functions are trying to return
     values from void functions. He included a patch in ticket [perl
     #42110] <http://xrl.us/vtf2>. Andrew Dougherty remarked that he had
     submitted the same patch the previous week, but not in RT. The patch
     was applied as r17793.

     Steve hoped there was a GCC warning flag which would catch this
     situation, but Nicholas Clark replied that he didn't think it was
     possible to look for this. He wondered if some other compilers could
     be coaxed into protesting. There was some discussion between Leopold
     Toetsch, Nicholas, Steve and chromatic over the value of `-ansi
     -pedantic`.

   [perl #42151] [PATCH] Assorted casting cleanups - part I
   <http://xrl.us/vrou>

     In ticket [perl #42151] <http://xrl.us/vtf4>, Steve Peters submitted a
     patch to clean up some casting instances. Kevin had a related request.
     Andy Dougherty also had a suggestion. Steve said that he intended to
     look at some of these ideas more closely as he worked on the project.
     chromatic and Leopold Toetsch also joined the thread.

   IRC discussion of smoking and branching <http://xrl.us/vrov>

     Allison Randal posted a discussion of the draft document 'Parallel
     development requirements,' which was announced in thread 'ParrotCode
     meeting this week <http://xrl.us/vsa6>'.

     There were some suggestions on how to improve the smoking system. For
     instance, Nicholas Clark noted that the Perl 5 system reports failures
     to perl5-porters, but the Parrot smoke failures aren't reported in a
     similar way. Another discussion involved commits which violate the
     coding standards.

     Many people contributed to this thread, and also to the IRC
     conversation which Allison posted.

   Re: [perl #42155] [PATCH] move members from Parrot_Interp to
   Parrot_Context <http://xrl.us/vrow>

     Alek Storm created ticket [perl #42155] <http://xrl.us/vtf5> to offer
     a patch which moved variables from `Parrot_Interp` to
     `Parrot_Context`. He noted that it broke some tests, and anyone who
     could figure out what the problem is will get a hug.

     Leopold Toetsch replied that it was deliberate that these variables
     were not in the Context structure. Alek replied that some of them
     already are in `Parrot_Context` and this patch simply moves the rest
     of them. Leopold and Alek had some further discussion on the matter.
     chromatic added his thoughts as well. Some benchmarking was done in an
     attempt to calculate the performance of Parrot before and after the
     patch. Joshua Isom also tested it.

   [perl #42156] [PATCH] Make invoke() return opcode_t*
   <http://xrl.us/vrox>

     Ticket [perl #42156] <http://xrl.us/vtf6> contained a patch by Steve
     Peters. This addressed some of the points raised in '[perl #42151]
     [PATCH] Assorted casting cleanups - part I <http://xrl.us/vrou>'. Paul
     Cochrane reported that the patch generated a warning for him. Steve
     made some additional changes to resolve the issue, and the new patch
     was applied as r17859.

   [perl #42161] [BUG] Parrot::Test throws "Can't spawn" warning on windows
   if a system call returns a negative value <http://xrl.us/vroz>

     Jerry Gay reported in ticket [perl #42161] <http://xrl.us/vtf7> that
     Parrot::Test throws a warning on Windows if a system call returns a
     negative value. He planned to commit a patch.

   [perl #42073] [BUG]: compilers/pirc/Makefile not cleaned up by 'make
   realclean' <http://xrl.us/vro2>

     James Keenan reported in ticket [perl #42073] <http://xrl.us/vtf8>
     that he expects `make realclean` to return his Parrot sandbox to its
     initial checkout status. He noted that this was not always happening.

     Klaas-Jan Stol was responsible for the file in question, but could not
     replicate the problem. James offered a patch and applied it as r17821.
     There were still some issues, which led James to ask if there were any
     Makefile experts who could help.

   [perl #42169] [CAGE] Create a sample subversion/config
   <http://xrl.us/vro3>

     Will Coleda created ticket [perl #42169] <http://xrl.us/vtf9> in
     response to a recent IRC discussion. Paul Cochrane offered a possible
     patch. Allison Randal pointed out that this was a global configuration
     which would affect all subversion repositories, not just Parrot. It
     was added to `editor/` in r17916.

   [perl #42170] [PATCH] Report line numbers on trailing_space.t
   <http://xrl.us/vro4>

     Will Coleda created ticket [perl #42170] <http://xrl.us/vtga> for a
     patch which was mentioned on IRC. He thought it was rather verbose,
     but didn't object to someone applying it. Jerry Gay and Eric Hanchrow
     offered comments. Paul Cochrane reported that the options had been
     added to `docs/project/cage_cleaners_guide.pod`.

   [perl #42215] [WEB]: Exporter PMC (and possibly others) missing from pmc
   docs page <http://xrl.us/vro5>

     In ticket [perl #42215] <http://xrl.us/vtgb>, Jerry Gay reported that
     the website parrotcode.org was missing some newly created PMCs.

   [perl #42218] [PATCH][Cygwin] Use bc on Cygwin <http://xrl.us/vro6>

     Ron Blaschke submitted a patch which enables bc on Cygwin if it is
     available. This was in ticket [perl #42218] <http://xrl.us/vtgc>.

   [perl #42074] [PATCH] add RECURSION_LIMIT macro <http://xrl.us/vro7>

     Ticket [perl #42074] <http://xrl.us/vtgd> contains a patch by Alek
     Storm which defines a `RECURSION_LIMIT` macro which had been
     hardcoded. It was applied in r17863.

     chromatic noted that it would be easy to make it a gettable/settable
     interpreter property and wondered if it would be of any use. Paul
     Cochrane replied that it already is that type of property, and that it
     would probably be valuable to be able to set the value at runtime.
     Leopold Toetsch reported that the interpreter already has it.

     Alek noted that the ParrotInterpreter PMC doesn't implement
     `set_pmc_keyed` and wondered if he could implement it. Allison Randal
     decided against it. There was a brief discussion on this.

   [svn:parrot-pdd] r17711 - trunk/docs/pdds/draft <http://xrl.us/vsau>

     Jonathan Worthington made a commit to PDD15 which added a proposal for
     role conflict resolution.

   [perl #42072] [BUG]: pmc2c.pl: Does anyone (know how to) use the
   'no-body' option? <http://xrl.us/vsav>

     In ticket [perl #42072] <http://xrl.us/vtge>, James Keenan reported
     that he had experienced problems writing a test for the 'no-body'
     option in November/December, but hadn't gotten around to it. Because
     this option is not completely covered by the test suite, it is
     affecting other code. Therefore James is trying to figure out how it
     ought to work and had some questions about the warnings he saw.

   First Perl 6 Microgrant - Steve Peters on Parrot Portability
   <http://xrl.us/vsaz>

     Jesse Vincent announced that Steve Peters was the first recipient of
     the Perl 6 microgrant. Steve will be working on Parrot portability,
     and has already made several patches this week. More information about
     his proposal can be found in the grant application text.

     Details about the microgrant application procedure
     <http://xrl.us/vtgf> are available for those interested in submitting
     a proposal.

   A challenge... about Parrot <http://xrl.us/vsa2>

     Alberto Simões mentioned a conference on languages, compilers and
     interpreters in Portugal. He thought it might be a good occasion to
     make a scientific publication about Parrot. Alberto felt that bringing
     Parrot to the attention of the scientific community would be a gain
     for both universities and Parrot. He offered to help with
     accommodation but not with writing the talk.

     Jonathan Worthington thought it was a good idea although he wouldn't
     be able to attend the conference. He noted that he had previously
     spoken to an academic audience and that it was challenging. He wanted
     to see the gap bridged, but noted that his own experience had involved
     some negative responses from a theory-oriented group.

   [perl #42105] memory leak in PCCMETHOD together with Parrot_runops_fromc
   <http://xrl.us/vsa3>

     Richard Hundt reported a memory leak, using ticket [perl #42105]
     <http://xrl.us/vtgg> to draw attention to it.

   [perl #42106] t/pmc/iterator.t t/src/io.t failed on Linux
   <http://xrl.us/vsa4>

     In ticket [perl #42106] <http://xrl.us/vtgh>, James Keenan reported
     some errors that he had encountered with `make test` on Linux. Eric
     Hanchrow replied that he thought it was his code, and that he was
     looking into the problem.

   [perl #42107] [PATCH] Intel C++ is not gcc <http://xrl.us/vsa5>

     Steve Peters submitted a patch to help identify GCC compilers
     correctly. It was attached to ticket [perl #42107]
     <http://xrl.us/vtgi> and applied as r17789.

   ParrotCode meeting this week <http://xrl.us/vsa6>

     Will Coleda wanted to discuss branching and the repository in general
     at the weekly Parrot meeting. Jerry Gay started a wiki page
     <http://xrl.us/vtgj> to keep track of ideas.

   [perl #42135] [PATCH] Fix overzealous flag removal in
   t/examples/shootout.t <http://xrl.us/vsa7>

     In ticket [perl #42135] <http://xrl.us/vtgk>, Andy Dougherty tried to
     address the problem of examples in `examples/shootout` specifying
     flags which aren't described anywhere. It was applied as r17792.

     Leopold Toetsch apologized for the lack of documentation and explained
     what the flags did.

   Testing PIRC <http://xrl.us/vsbc>

     Klaas-Jan Stol wanted to create a test suite for `compliers/pirc` but
     wanted suggestions on how he could do this.

  perl5-porters

   Working on punie + rindolf (the implementation) Reloaded
   <http://xrl.us/vro9>

     Shlomi Fish discussed the idea of writing a Perl 5 front-end which
     will compile Perl 5 code to Parrot. He wanted to name it 'rindolf' and
     wondered if Punie would be a good basis for the effort. He also wanted
     to know if he could have commit access to the repository.

     Allison Randal replied that it was an unusual approach and that she
     had doubts about the implementation plan, but that she would be
     interested in knowing what obstacles and successes came out of the
     effort. She thought that Punie would not be useful to Shlomi, given
     his plan. Her suggestion with regard to the repository was that he
     develop outside the tree and distribute it as a separate loadable
     module.

     Shlomi argued for being liberal with commit bits, and expressed his
     concern that the name Punie suggests that it is a toy. There was some
     continued discussion on these points, and also on Shlomi's proposal.

  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/>