2018.22 GDPR To You Too

There is no escape: the PAUSE now has a Privacy Policy, Neil Bowers explains in a blog post (Reddit comments). It’s good to see that the Perl community take action on such matters that affect us all.

2018.05 Rakudo Compiler Release

Thanks to the work of many, specifically Samantha McVey (MoarVM) and Aleks-Daniel Jakimenko-Aleksejev (nqp and Rakudo), there is a new Rakudo compiler release. And within a short time after that, pre-compiled Linux packages in several flavors were made by Claudio Ramirez.

Perl Developer Survey Results

The results of the Perl Developer Survey were published. Which caused some comments on Reddit. In that respect yours truly can only agree with a comment by Zoffix Znet:

As for the survey itself, it’d be nice if it were clearer on whether it’s collecting data on Perl 5 and Perl 6 programmers or just on Perl 5. It starts off by referring to “Perl 5” in the first question and “Perl” in the next, suggesting it covers both languages, yet later questions (e.g. frameworks) only include Perl 5’s frameworks.

It’s Squashathon Time Again This Weekend

Well, technically for as long as it is Saturday 2 June 2018 anywhere in the world. The issues of the perl6/whateverable repository will be the focus of this Squashathon. Check out the wiki for more information and hope to see you there this weekend!

Blog Posts

• Perl 6 documentation repository through time: dealing with issues by JJ Merelo.
• How to learn the true power of Perl? by DontwakemeUp46.
• Tuning a production Perl 6 web application by Lance Wicks (Reddit comments).

Core Developments

Most of these core developments happened after the 2018.05 Rakudo Compiler Release.

• Ticket status of past week.
• Samantha McVey did some great optimization work on the Unicode grapheme handling on the MoarVM backend, which resulted in Str.lines and Str.words becoming about 2x as fast. And she fixed some issues in the handling of bitwise string operators with regards to the handling of synthetics and normalization.
• Timo Paulssen fixed a problem with the debug-server hitting the same breakpoint again and again.
• Christian Bartolomäus fixed various slicing issues in nqp on the JVM backend, and the implementation of the nqp::isrwcont opcode. The latter change fixed a long standing issue where the wrong candidate was selected in some situations in a multi-dispatch.
• Martin Ryan fixed an issue with stringification of Sub when using the --target=ast command line parameter.
• Tom Browder worked on several issues with vertical whitespace in Perl 6 pod.
• Elizabeth Mattijsen fixed a long-standing issue with the use of is DEPRECATED on routines in pre-compiled modules. And while she was at it, she also implemented the is DEPRECATED trait on Attributes with auto-generated methods.
• And many more smaller fixes and improvements, specifically by JJ Merelo in the Perl 6 documentation.

Meanwhile on Twitter

• Where are the blogs? by Perl Weekly.
• Are they breeding? by Zoffix Znet.
• Another happy Perl 6 user by Zoffix Znet.
• Evolution of open doc issues by JJ Merelo.
• Spotted poetry by Zoffix Znet.
• Label affection by JJ Merelo.
• Unweird Threads by Zoffix Znet.
• De Morgan’s Law in short by JJ Merelo.
• All your Perl 6 needs by Jeff Goff.
• New 2018.05 Linux Packages by Claudio Ramirez.
• New introduction to math in Perl 6 by JJ Merelo.
• 2018.05 uploaded to debian/unstable by Dominique Dumont.
• Underhyped by JJ Merelo.
• Building a Pi by Zoffix Znet.
• Current State of Perl 6 by brian d foy.
• Set makes a difference by Zoffix Znet.
• Fantastic Tutorials! by TPCiSLC.
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by TPCiSLC.
• Closed by one person by JJ Merelo.
• Thinking aloud on Twitter bots by raiph_mellor.

Meanwhile on StackOverflow

• Is there anything like a cookbook? by dominix.
• What is the syntax and correct way of using SourceBaby, one of the bots used in the Perl 6 related channels? by JJ Merelo.
• Overriding method call operator or some other way to catch method name resolution errors by JJ Merelo.
• Declaration and assignment of variables: silently dropping of assigned values by JJ Merelo.
• Type Inference by dharmatech.
• Element membership and identity by JJ Merelo.
• What’s the meta-object rule for naming grammar rules by JJ Merelo.
• Triple pointer native call by vbextreme vbextreme.
• Array – get rid of empty slot (Any) by pcarrier.

Meanwhile on FaceBook

• Netflix or Perl 6 by JJ Merelo.
• New Perl 6 Brochures! by Wendy van Dijk.
• A bit proud by Wendy van Dijk.

Meanwhile on perl6-users

• =begin comment as replacement for =begin data by Marcel Timmerman.
• Regex and metacharacters by ToddAndMargo.
• What is my sub? by ToddAndMargo.
• My keeper on random numbers by ToddAndMargo.
• Real, Num, Rat question by ToddAndMargo.
• An operation first awaited by Norman Gaywood.
• () can I get away with this? by ToddAndMargo.

Perl 6 in comments

• Breaking changes by ryanianian.
• Early design for classes by b2gills.
• No new features by gkya.
• Into the name of the language by perigrin.
• Starting transitioning? by znpy.
• Starting to learn Perl now by xyrouter.
• Cargo Cult Continues by snarfy.
• Mostly Complete by FractalLP.
• Things went backwards by jhbadger.
• Nobody left to listen by MichaelMoser123.
• Extremely hostile community by bionoid.
• So it won’t ever ship by vorg.
• Shit test by sverige.
• No good reason to spend any time learning by beermad.
• for/else in Perl 6 by ergothus.
• Nearly as terse as APL by bstamour.

Perl 6 Modules

New Modules:

• Config::Parser::json by Robert Lemmen.
• Digest::BubbleBabble by Ben Davies.
• User::grent, User::pwent, Net::netent, Net::protoent, Net::servent, Time::localtime, Time::gmtime, DirHandle, Env by Elizabeth Mattijsen (for the CPAN Butterfly Plan).

Updated modules:

• Test::Declare by Darren Foreman.
• P5pack, P5times, P5pack, P5getnetbyname by Elizabeth Mattijsen (for the CPAN Butterfly Plan).

Winding Down

With all-time record-breaking high temperatures all week where yours truly is writing this, it’s hard not to feel things are heating up. And that’s just the world, not Perl 6! See you next week to feel the heat of more Perl 6 goodies!