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diff --git a/docs/announce/2014.03.md b/docs/announce/2014.03.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e481f9e --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/announce/2014.03.md @@ -0,0 +1,73 @@ +# Announce: Rakudo Star Release 2014.03 + +## 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 March 2014 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable +distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the March 2014 release is +available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>. 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 2014.03] of the +[Rakudo Perl 6 compiler], version 6.1.0 of the [Parrot Virtual +Machine], plus various modules, documentation, and other resources +collected from the Perl 6 community. + +[release 2014.03]: + https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2014.03.md +[Rakudo Perl 6 compiler]: http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo +[Parrot Virtual Machine]: http://parrot.org + +Some of the new features added to this release include: + ++ The core of Rakudo::Debugger is now part of Rakudo + itself and works across all backends. ++ "make" no longer itemizes its arguments. ++ for-loops at the statementlist level are now sunk by default. ++ better parsing of unspaces and formatting codes inside Pod blocks. ++ Fix for for-loops to be properly lazy ++ Numerous Pod parsing and formatting improvements ++ @<c> as shortcut for @$<c>, %<c> as shortcut for %$<c> ++ list infix reductions no longer flatten ++ Numerous compiler suggestion improvements + +Please note that this release of Rakudo Star does not support the JVM +nor the MoarVM backends from the Rakudo compiler. While the other backends +mostly implement the same features as the Parrot backend, some bits are +still missing that lead to module build problems or test failures. +We hope to provide experimental JVM-based and MoarVM-based Rakudo Star +releases in April 2014. + +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: + + * advanced macros + * threads and concurrency (in work for the JVM and MoarVM backend) + * Unicode strings at levels other than codepoints + * interactive readline that understands Unicode + * non-blocking I/O + * much of Synopsis 9 and 11 + +There is an online resource at <http://perl6.org/compilers/features> +that lists the known implemented and missing features of Rakudo 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. A +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. |