Move skel/ into top-level directory, to try building directly from the repo.

19 files changed, 1526 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/CREDITS b/docs/CREDITS
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f933c37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/CREDITS
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+=pod
+
+    Following in the steps of other open source projects that
+    eventually take over the world, here is the partial list
+    of people who have contributed to Rakudo and its supporting
+    works.  It is sorted by name and formatted to allow easy
+    grepping and beautification by scripts.
+    The fields are: name (N), email (E), web-address (W),
+    description (D), repository username (U) and snail-mail
+    address (S).
+
+        Thanks,
+
+        The Rakudo Star Team
+        PS: Yes, this looks remarkably like the Linux CREDITS format
+        PPS: This file is encoded in UTF-8
+
+----------
+
+N: Carl Masak
+E: cmasak@gmail.com
+U: masak
+
+N: Jonathan Scott Duff
+U: perlpilot
+E: duff@pobox.com
+
+N: Jonathan Worthington
+U: jnthn
+E: jnthn@jnthn.net
+W: http://www.jnthn.net/
+
+N: Martin Berends
+E: mberends@autoexec.demon.nl
+D: Rakudo patch(es)
+
+N: Moritz Lenz
+E: moritz@faui2k3.org
+U: moritz
+U: moritz_
+D: Test infrastructure, tests, various Rakudo features and built-ins
+
+N: Patrick R. Michaud
+U: pmichaud
+D: Perl 6 (Rakudo Perl) lead developer, pumpking
+E: pmichaud@pobox.com
+
+N: Dave Olszewski
+E: cxreg@pobox.com
+U: cxreg
+D: Bugfixes and moral support
+
+N: Tadeusz Sośnierz
+E: tadzikes@gmail.com
+U: tadzik
+
+=cut
diff --git a/docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf b/docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a3ded4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.07 b/docs/announce/2010.07
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5896acc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.07
@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the July 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  "Rakudo Star" is a distribution that includes
+release #31 of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.6.0 of
+the Parrot Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.  We
+plan to make Rakudo Star releases on a monthly schedule, with
+occasional special releases in response to important bugfixes or
+changes.
+
+Some of the many cool Perl 6 features that are available in this
+release of Rakudo Star:
+  * Perl 6 grammars and regexes
+  * formal parameter lists and signatures
+  * metaoperators
+  * gradual typing
+  * a powerful object model, including roles and classes
+  * lazy list evaluation
+  * multiple dispatch
+  * smart matching
+  * junctions and autothreading
+  * operator overloading (limited forms for now)
+  * introspection
+  * currying
+  * a rich library of builtin operators, functions, and types
+  * an interactive read-evaluation-print loop
+  * Unicode at the codepoint level
+  * resumable exceptions
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+
+Rakudo Star also bundles a number of modules; a partial list of
+the modules provided by this release include:
+  * Blizkost
+      - enables some Perl 5 modules to be used from within Rakudo Perl 6
+  * MiniDBI
+      - a simple database interface for Rakudo Perl 6
+  * Zavolaj
+      - call C library functions from Rakudo Perl 6
+  * SVG and SVG::Plot
+      - create scalable vector graphics
+  * HTTP::Daemon
+      - a simple HTTP server
+  * XML::Writer
+      - generate XML
+  * YAML
+      - dump Perl 6 objects as YAML
+  * Term::ANSIColor
+      - color screen output using ANSI escape sequences
+  * Test::Mock
+      - create mock objects and check what methods were called
+  * Math::Model
+      - describe and run mathematical models
+  * Config::INI
+      - parse and write configuration files
+  * File::Find
+      - find files in a given directory
+  * LWP::Simple
+      - fetch resources from the web
+
+These are not considered "core Perl 6 modules", and as module
+development for Perl 6 continues to mature, future releases
+of Rakudo Star will likely come bundled with a different set
+of modules. Deprecation policies for bundled modules will be
+created over time, and other Perl 6 distributions may choose
+different sets of modules or policies.  More information about
+Perl 6 modules can be found at http://modules.perl6.org/.
+
+Rakudo Star also contains a draft of a Perl 6 book -- see 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
+in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
+release of Rakudo Star will be on August 24, 2010.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.08 b/docs/announce/2010.08
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..42ac145
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.08
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the August 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the August 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The August 2010 Star release includes release #32
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.7.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * Nil is now undefined
+  * Many regex modifiers are now recognized on the outside of regexes
+  * Mathematic and range operations are now faster (they're still slow,
+    but they're significantly faster than they were in the previous release)
+  * Initial implementations of .pack and .unpack
+  * MAIN can parse short arguments
+  * Removed a significant memory leak for loops and other repeated blocks
+
+This release (temporarily?) omits the Config::INI module that was
+included in the 2010.07 release, as it no longer builds with the 
+shipped version of Rakudo.  We hope to see Config::INI return soon.
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
+in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
+release of Rakudo Star will be on September 28, 2010.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.09 b/docs/announce/2010.09
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5fac9da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.09
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the September 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the September 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The September 2010 Star release includes release #33
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.8.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * Several performance improvements have been implemented;
+    notably in the slurp() and reverse() functions
+  * The series operator has been refactored and updated to the current 
+    specification
+  * Temporal objects (DateTime, Date, Instant, and Duration) are now 
+    completely implemented
+  * Enumeration objects now conform much closer to the specification
+  * 'now' and 'time' are now terms instead of functions.  This means
+    you can write 'time - 1' and it will do what you mean, but
+   'time()' is no longer valid.
+  * The Perl 6 specification tests [3] are now included in the distribution.
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
+in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
+release of Rakudo Star will be on October 26, 2010.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
+[3] http://github.com/perl6/roast
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.10 b/docs/announce/2010.10
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e85bf33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.10
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the October 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the October 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The October 2010 Star release includes release #34
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.9.1 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * A simple implementation of 'require'
+  * Local timezone is available in $*TZ
+  * Implementations of ms// ss/// (samespace)
+  * Speed improvements to Str.flip
+  * Hyperoperator versions of +=
+  * Improved diagnostic messages and warning messages
+  * True and False now stringify properly
+  * Attribute modification via introspection
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
+in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
+release of Rakudo Star will be on November 23, 2010.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
+[3] http://github.com/perl6/roast
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.11 b/docs/announce/2010.11
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..294159d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.11
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the November 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the November 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The November 2010 Star release includes release #35
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.10.1 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * qw// is implemented
+  * The .trans method is 5x faster
+  * Indexing with ranges and Whatever offsets now works
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a monthly cycle or as needed
+in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned 
+release of Rakudo Star will be on December 28, 2010.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
+[3] http://github.com/perl6/roast
diff --git a/docs/announce/2010.12 b/docs/announce/2010.12
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..67d088f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2010.12
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the December 2010 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the December 2010 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The December 2010 Star release includes release #36
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 2.11.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * New .trans algorithm
+  * Configuration improvements
+  * More bug fixes
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Thus, we do not consider Rakudo Star to be a
+"Perl 6.0.0" or "1.0" release.  Some of the not-quite-there
+features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Starting with the January 2011 release, Rakudo Star releases will be
+created on a three-month cycle, or as needed in response to important
+bug fixes or improvements.  The next planned release of Rakudo Star
+will be on January 25, 2011.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2011.01 b/docs/announce/2011.01
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be3c8a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2011.01
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the January 2011 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the January 2011 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The January 2011 Star release includes release #37
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 3.0.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * faster subroutine calls (type cache)
+  * implemented 'handles Rolename' trait
+  * 'use Devel::Trace' debugging pragma
+  * improved parsing of keyword boundaries
+  * faster .comb
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Starting with this January 2011 release, Rakudo Star releases will be
+created on a three-month cycle, or as needed in response to important
+bug fixes or improvements.  (The Rakudo compiler will continue with
+monthly releases.)  The next planned release of Rakudo Star will be 
+in April 2011.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2011.04 b/docs/announce/2011.04
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c441c12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2011.04
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the April 2011 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the April 2011 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+Rakudo Star is aimed at "early adopters" of Perl 6.  We know that
+it still has some bugs, it is far slower than it ought to be, and
+there are some advanced pieces of the Perl 6 language specification
+that aren't implemented yet.  But Rakudo Perl 6 in its current form
+is also proving to be viable (and fun) for developing applications
+and exploring a great new language.  These "Star" releases are
+intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow
+the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the
+Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The April 2011 Star release includes release #40
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 3.3.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * Modules MiniDBI, form, HTTP::Daemon, Yaml and Module::Tools are
+    removed in this release. 
+  * New modules Pies (including panda, the module installer) and 
+    HTTP::Server::Simple have been added.
+  * New implementation of IO::Socket::INET, with basic IPv6 support
+  * -p and -n command-line options are now available
+  * Many new IO improvements, including stat-related methods
+  * New --ll-backtrace command-line switch for printing PIR level stack traces
+  * Preliminary implementation of Infix 'orelse'
+  * Added Str.indent
+  * Bugfixes to negation meta operator
+  * Support for complex conjugation
+    
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+Rakudo Star releases are created on a three-month cycle, or as 
+needed in response to important bug fixes or improvements.  
+(The Rakudo compiler will continue with monthly releases.)  
+The next planned release of Rakudo Star will be in July 2011.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2011.07 b/docs/announce/2011.07
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b51858b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2011.07
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the July 2011 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable
+distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2011 release is
+available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT UPCOMING RELEASES: This is the last Rakudo Star 
+release to use a compiler from the current "master" branch of Rakudo.
+For the past several months, Rakudo compiler development has
+primarily occurred in a separate "nom" ("New Object Model") branch of 
+its repository.  Shortly after this release, the "nom" branch will 
+become the new "master" branch and will be the source for future 
+compiler and Star releases.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  The July 2011 Star release includes release #43
+of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 3.6.0 of the Parrot 
+Virtual Machine [2], and various modules, documentation,
+and other resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+The Rakudo team plans to issue another distribution release
+in August 2011 based on the new "nom" compiler.  The new
+compiler contains many improvements over the current line
+of development (including vastly improved performance), but also 
+will not be 100% backwards-compatible due to changes in the 
+Perl 6 language specification and elimination of some workarounds.  
+Existing Rakudo Star users looking for stability should continue 
+to use the July 2011 release as the new distribution releases 
+stabilize over the next several months.
+
+Details about deprecations and migration guidelines will be
+provided in future releases and on rakudo.org .
+
+This release of Rakudo Star adds the following features over the
+previous Star release:
+  * 10%-30% improvement in compile and execution speed
+  * New gcd (greatest common divisor) and lcm (largest common multiple) operators
+  * Int.base
+  * Call counter for Perl 6-level subroutines
+  * Better handling of &infix:<=> right associativity
+  * Fix bug in exponentiation of negative numbers
+  * Fix building on systems with smaller RAM
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * nested package definitions
+  * binary objects, native types, pack and unpack
+  * typed arrays
+  * macros
+  * state variables
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * backslash escapes in regex <[...]> character classes
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * most of Synopsis 9
+  * perl6doc or pod manipulation tools
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2011.07 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.01 b/docs/announce/2012.01
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..44b1f11
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.01
@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the January 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the January 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release #48 of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 3.11 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Significantly, this is the first distribution release based on the
+"nom" (New Object Model) development branch of Rakudo. This work
+has been carried out with the aim of increasing performance and
+correctness, as well as providing a better base for taking on a
+range of missing features. Here are some of the major improvements
+in this release over the previous distribution release.
+
+* Greatly improved performance in many areas. For some scripts, this
+  release offers an order of magnitude performance improvement.
+
+* POD6 support, including the $=POD variable to make the POD available
+  at runtime and a --doc option to get at the POD
+
+* The Int type now has big integer semantics
+
+* Initial work on native types, which can be used to write much
+  more efficient code
+  
+* LTM-driven protoregexes
+
+* Meta-programming support, including custom meta-classes, overriding
+  method dispatch and much more
+  
+* Exception handling is much closer to the specification, and thus much
+  more useful
+
+* Better package handling, including true separate compilation, lexical
+  packages and better nested package handling
+
+* An optimizer, which improves generated code as well as catching
+  a range of issues at compile-time that previously made it to runtime
+
+* Backslash sequences in character classes
+
+* Stubbed methods from roles are now required, providing interface
+  style functionality
+
+* Typed arrays and hashes, as well as supporting for binding to
+  array and hash elements
+
+Due to improvements in the Perl 6 language specification, and
+changes to Rakudo to track them, some existing code will need
+changes. Here are some of the major differences to be aware of.
+
+* Attributes can no longer be initialized using "new" unless they
+  are declared as having an accessor; either give them one or write
+  a BUILD submethod
+
+* The proto keyword is no longer used to declare a multi-dispatch
+  fallback
+
+* You may no longer do 'filename'.lines; use 'filename'.IO.lines
+
+We have maintained backwards compatibility with some changed pieces
+of syntax, but will drop them in an upcoming release:
+
+* "<...>" in proto regex bodies; now this should be written "*"
+
+* The use of "**" with a separator in regexes; this is now done by
+  using "%" or "%%" on another quantifier
+
+While this release does contain a great number of improvements,
+unfortunately we have regressed in a few places. Of note:
+
+* Some cases of auto-vivification do not work
+
+* The binding of a capture against a signature literal is
+  broken
+  
+We will be working to restore this functionality for future
+Rakudo Star releases; if you depend heavily on it, you may
+wish to stick with the previous Rakudo Star release for
+another month. 
+  
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * pack and unpack
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.01 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.02 b/docs/announce/2012.02
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a32f5da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.02
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the February 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the February 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release #49 of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.1 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Here are some of the major improvements in this release over the
+previous distribution release.
+
+* The FatRat type is implemented, and Rat arithmetic now properly
+  defaults to Num if the denominator is too big
+
+* Object hashes are implemented, and can be declared with the syntax
+  my %h{Any} (for a hash with keys of type Any)
+
+* The <Some::Grammar::rulename> syntax is now implemented in regexes;
+  <foo> can also be used to call predeclared lexical rules
+
+* The Int($x) coercion syntax is implemented
+
+* &rename and &copy are now implemented
+
+* Improvements to the reduction meta-operator (order of magnitude faster,
+  some parsing issues fixed)
+
+* The <prior> regex built-in is now available, and matches whatever the
+  last successful match matched
+
+* A $match.make(...) method is available to set the AST for a match
+  object not stored in the $/ variable
+
+* Improved backtraces
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. Many more exceptions are thrown
+as typed exceptions.
+
+Due to continued evolution of and convergence with the Perl 6 spec, there
+are some changes to existing functionality that may affect your code:
+
+* You may no longer use the $.x form in submethods and attribute
+  initializers, as per spec; use the non-virtual $!x instead.
+
+* The LHS of the xx operator is now thunked
+
+* .conjugate is now called .conj
+
+* Enumeration values .gist to just the key, not the full name
+
+* An empty Buf is now False in boolean context
+
+Currently, we have maintained backwards compatibility with some
+changed pieces of syntax, but will drop them in an upcoming release:
+
+* "<...>" in proto regex bodies; now this should be written "*"
+
+* The use of "**" with a separator in regexes; this is now done by
+  using "%" or "%%" on another quantifier
+  
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * pack and unpack
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * pre and post constraints, and some other phasers
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.02 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.04 b/docs/announce/2012.04
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3acad8c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.04
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the April 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the April 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release 2012.04.1 [0] of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.3 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Here are some of the major improvements in this release over the
+previous distribution release.
+
+* much improved startup time
+
+* much more robust module precompilation
+
+* autovivification for arrays and hashes is implemented again
+
+* many phasers like PRE, POST and REDO are now implemented
+
+* improved support for calling C functions and modelling structs and arrays
+  via NativeCall.pm6
+
+* now includes modules URI, LWP::Simple, jsonrpc and Bailador (a Perl 6 port
+  of Dancer)
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. Many more exceptions are thrown
+as typed exceptions.
+
+Some notable incompatible changes from the previous release include
+
+ * the 'lib' directory is not included in the default module search path
+   anymore.  You can manipulate the search path with the PERL6LIB environment
+   variable
+
+ * 'defined' used to be a prefix operator, and is now a regular subroutine.
+   This means you must updated code that relies 'defined' taking only one
+   argument. For example 'defined $x ?? $a !! $b' should be written as
+   '$x.defined ?? $a !! $b' or 'defined($x) ?? $a !! $b'.
+  
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+  * pack and unpack
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.04 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[0] https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2012.04.1
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.05 b/docs/announce/2012.05
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d6f2575
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.05
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the May 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the May 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release 2012.05 [0] of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.4 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Here are some of the major improvements in this release over the
+previous distribution release.
+
+* -I and -M command-line options
+* support for non-Int enums
+* 'use' now accepts positional arguments and is able to import by tag name
+* 'import' now works
+* basic support for Version literals
+* %*ENV now propagates into subprocesses
+* basic implementation of pack and unpack ported from 'ng' branch
+* fff flip-flop operator is now implemented, ff has been improved
+* various new regex features and improvements
+
+Rakudo now also includes the lib.pm module.
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. More exceptions are thrown
+as typed exceptions.
+  
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.05 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[0] https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2012.05
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.06 b/docs/announce/2012.06
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0384ded
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.06
@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the June 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the June 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release 2012.06 [0] of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.5 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Here are some of the major improvements in this release over the
+previous distribution release.
+
+* Transitive longest-token matching in protoregexes
+
+* Longest token matching for alternations
+
+* Enhanced list and .map handling, including laziness fixes and performance
+  improvements
+
+* Can use an argument list with require
+  
+* Compile time errors in loaded modules now show a module loading backtrace
+
+* String to number conversion now recognizes radix notation
+
+* The &push and &unshift functions can now autovivify
+
+* Rakudo is now compiled with the same regex engine that user-space
+  regexes use; some parsing bugs are fixed as a result
+
+* p6doc is now shipped with Rakudo Star. It is a small collection of 
+  user-oriented documentation, along with the `p6doc` script for viewing
+  them.
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. More exceptions are thrown as typed
+exceptions, and more meta-model errors have been fixed to properly
+report line numbers.
+
+This release contains an important breaking change to number parsing.
+Previously, a string such as "foo" would numify to 0. Now this will
+return a Failure.
+  
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.06 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[0] https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2012.06
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.07 b/docs/announce/2012.07
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8f5d56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.07
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the July 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the July 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release 2012.07 [0] of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.6 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Some of the new features added to this release include:
+
+* Built-in metaobjects (e.g. Metamodel::ClassHOW) now inherit from Any
+
+* &open now supports the :enc/:encoding option
+
+* anonymous subset types (e.g., 'subset :: of Int where { $_ > 0 }')
+
+* Rakudo Star now ships with the Template::Mojo module
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. More exceptions are thrown as typed
+exceptions, and more meta-model errors have been fixed to properly
+report line numbers.
+
+Starting with this release, we will also identify changes to the
+implementation or specification that can cause breakages in existing
+Perl 6 code.  The following features have been deprecated or modified
+due to changes in the Perl 6 specification, and are being removed
+or changed as follows:
+
+* IO::File and IO::Dir will go away, and &dir now returns values of type
+  IO::Path (which is currently the superclass of IO::File and IO::Dir).
+  The return values of &dir will still stringify to the base name of the
+  returned file and directory names, and you can call .path on them to
+  obtain the full path.
+
+* Leading whitespace in rules and under :sigspace will no longer be
+  converted to <.ws> .  For existing regexes that expect this conversion,
+  add a <?> in front of leading whitespace to make it meta again.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The ?-quantifier on captures in regexes currently binds the capture
+  slot to a List containing either zero or one Match objects; i.e., it
+  is equivalent to "** 0..1".  In the future, the ?-quantifier will
+  bind the slot directly to a captured Match or to Nil.  Existing code
+  can manage the transition by changing existing ?-quantifiers to
+  use "** 0..1", which will continue to return a List of matches.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release, but may end up in 2012.09 .
+
+* The method Str.bytes will be removed. To get the number of codepoints
+  in a string, use .codes instead. To get the number of bytes in a
+  given encoding, use $str.encode($encoding).bytes .
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The method Str.lcfirst will be removed without replacement.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The method Str.ucfirst will eventually be removed, and replaced by
+  Str.tc.
+  No schedule yet, depends on having tc implemented first.
+
+* 'abs' is currently a prefix operator, and will be changed to a normal
+  subroutine.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The integer argument to IO::Socket.recv will be interpreted as number of
+  characters/codepoints.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.07 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[0] https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2012.07
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/announce/2012.08 b/docs/announce/2012.08
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f734c36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/announce/2012.08
@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6
+
+On behalf of the Rakudo and Perl 6 development teams, I'm happy to
+announce the August 2012 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and
+usable distribution of Perl 6.  The tarball for the August 2012
+release is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.
+A Windows .MSI version of Rakudo star will usually appear in
+the downloads area shortly after the tarball release.
+
+In the Perl 6 world, we make a distinction between the language 
+("Perl 6") and specific implementations of the language such as
+"Rakudo Perl".  This Star release includes release 2012.08 [0] of the
+Rakudo Perl 6 compiler [1], version 4.6 of the Parrot Virtual
+Machine [2], and various modules, documentation, and other
+resources collected from the Perl 6 community.
+
+Some of the new features added to this release include:
+
+This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error
+reporting and better failure modes. More exceptions are thrown as typed
+exceptions, and more meta-model errors have been fixed to properly
+report line numbers.
+
+Starting with this release, we will also identify changes to the
+implementation or specification that can cause breakages in existing
+Perl 6 code.  The following features have been deprecated or modified
+due to changes in the Perl 6 specification, and are being removed
+or changed as follows:
+
+[TODO: update the below list]
+
+* IO::File and IO::Dir will go away, and &dir now returns values of type
+  IO::Path (which is currently the superclass of IO::File and IO::Dir).
+  The return values of &dir will still stringify to the base name of the
+  returned file and directory names, and you can call .path on them to
+  obtain the full path.
+
+* Leading whitespace in rules and under :sigspace will no longer be
+  converted to <.ws> .  For existing regexes that expect this conversion,
+  add a <?> in front of leading whitespace to make it meta again.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The ?-quantifier on captures in regexes currently binds the capture
+  slot to a List containing either zero or one Match objects; i.e., it
+  is equivalent to "** 0..1".  In the future, the ?-quantifier will
+  bind the slot directly to a captured Match or to Nil.  Existing code
+  can manage the transition by changing existing ?-quantifiers to
+  use "** 0..1", which will continue to return a List of matches.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release, but may end up in 2012.09 .
+
+* The method Str.bytes will be removed. To get the number of codepoints
+  in a string, use .codes instead. To get the number of bytes in a
+  given encoding, use $str.encode($encoding).bytes .
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The method Str.lcfirst will be removed without replacement.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The method Str.ucfirst will eventually be removed, and replaced by
+  Str.tc.
+  No schedule yet, depends on having tc implemented first.
+
+* 'abs' is currently a prefix operator, and will be changed to a normal
+  subroutine.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+* The integer argument to IO::Socket.recv will be interpreted as number of
+  characters/codepoints.
+  Scheduled for the 2012.08 release.
+
+There are some key features of Perl 6 that Rakudo Star does not
+yet handle appropriately, although they will appear in upcoming
+releases.  Some of the not-quite-there features include:
+
+  * macros
+  * threads and concurrency
+  * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints
+  * interactive readline that understands Unicode
+  * non-blocking I/O
+  * much of Synopsis 9
+
+There is a new online resource at http://perl6.org/compilers/features 
+that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo Star
+2012.08 and other Perl 6 implementations.
+
+In many places we've tried to make Rakudo smart enough to inform the
+programmer that a given feature isn't implemented, but there are
+many that we've missed.  Bug reports about missing and broken
+features are welcomed at <rakudobug@perl.org>.
+
+See http://perl6.org/ for links to much more information about 
+Perl 6, including documentation, example code, tutorials, reference
+materials, specification documents, and other supporting resources.
+An updated draft of a Perl 6 book is available as 
+<docs/UsingPerl6-draft.pdf> in the release tarball.
+
+The development team thanks all of the contributors and sponsors
+for making Rakudo Star possible.  If you would like to contribute,
+see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org
+mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
+
+[0] https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2012.08
+[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo
+[2] http://parrot.org/
diff --git a/docs/cheatsheet.txt b/docs/cheatsheet.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b8d104
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/cheatsheet.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+Perl 6 cheat sheet v2                                                »ö«
+
+SIGILS    MAJOR/MINOR CONTEXTS         ACCESS ARRAYS      HASHES
+$scalar   item   list       sink       whole: @array[]    %hash{}
+@array     Str    flat/slice         element: @array[0]   %hash{'a'}
+%hash      Num    lazy/eager/hyper       (or)             %hash<a>
+&code      Bool                        slice: @array[0,2] %hash{'a','b'}
+                       COMPOSERS         (or)             %hash<a b>
+TWIGILS                [ ] array
+$normal-lexical        { } block/hash     AUTOMATIC DEREFERENCE
+$?compiler-constant    < > quotewords     &($foo)(1,2)     == $foo(1,2)
+$*dynamic-or-global    (,) parcel         @($foo)[1]       == $foo[1]
+$.public-accessor      :() signature      %($foo){'bar'}   == $foo<bar>
+$!private-attribute    \() capture        @(@($foo)[1])[2] == $foo[1][2]
+$^positional-param
+$:named-parameter         CONTROL SYNTAX
+$=pod-info                for LIST { }                # implicit $_ arg
+$<named-match-capture>    for LIST -> $a, $b { }      # explicit args
+$~slang-variable          while/until EXPR { }
+                          repeat while/until EXPR { } # do at least once
+OPERATOR PRECEDENCE       loop { }   loop (a;b;c) { } # parens required!
+.method .[] i             if EXPR { } elsif EXPR { } else { }
+++ --                     unless EXPR { }             # no else allowed!
+**                        given EXPR { when EXPR { } default { } }
+unary + - ~ ! ? ^         EXPR if EXPR for LIST;    # list comprehension
+* / % %% div              next, last, redo            # loop controls
++ -                       proceed, succeed            # switch controls
+x xx       TYPES
+~          Bool Bit Int Rat FatRat UInt Num Complex int32 complex64 etc.
+&          Str Cat Blob Char Byte Codepoint Grapheme Buf buf8 buf32 utf8
+| ^                               IO Mu Any Cool Junction Whatever Match
+sleep abs sin temp                              Parcel Capture Signature
+<=> leg cmp .. but          SCOPE DECLARATORS         Pair Range Set Bag
+~~ > == gt eq === eqv !op   my  lexical scope      KeyHash KeySet KeyBag
+&&                         our  package scope     Scalar Array Hash Code
+|| ^^ // min max           has  instance scope       Enum Order TrigBase
+??!! ff                   anon  no scope at all        Block Routine Sub
+= := op= =>              state  persistent lexical          Method Regex
+so not                 augment  benign parasitic       Failure Exception
+, :                  supersede  deadly parasitic        Instant Duration
+X Xop Z Zop ...                                            Date DateTime
+say die map etc.  OPERATOR DOMAINS
+and               Numeric: ==  !==(!=) + <      >     <=> <=     >=
+or xor            Stringy: eq  !eq(ne) ~ lt     gt    leg le     ge
+<== ==>             Value: eqv  !eqv     before after cmp !after !before
+                 ObjectID: ===  !===
+METAOPERATORS                         LINKS      IRC
+[op] reduce listop to A op B op C...  perl6.org  #perl6 irc.freenode.net
+op=  A = A op B                       rakudo.org #parrot irc.perl.org
+!op  !(A op B)
+»op« hyper/vectorize    REGEX  METACHARS          REGEX MODIFIERS
+Zop  zip with op        ^ $    string begin/end   :i   ignore case
+Xop  cross with op      ^^ $$  line begin/end     :m   ignore marks
+Rop  reverse args       +      one or more        :g   global
+Sop  sequentialize      *      zero or more       :r   ratchet
+                        ?      zero or one        :s   sigspace
+SPECIAL VARIABLES       **1..3 repeat in range    :4th nth occurrence
+$_     current topic    ()     capture to $0,$1   :4x  n times
+$/     regex result     []     no capture
+$!     error object     <foo>  subrule          REGEX CHARCLASSES
+@*ARGS command line     <[]>   character class  .  == anychar, \N non \n
+@*INC  include path     |      parallel or      \s == <space>, \S non
+%*ENV  environment      ||     serial or        \d == <digit>, \D non
+$*PID  process id       « »    word boundary    \w == <+alpha+digit+[_]>