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diff --git a/skel/docs/announce/2012.01 b/skel/docs/announce/2012.01 deleted file mode 100644 index 44b1f11..0000000 --- a/skel/docs/announce/2012.01 +++ /dev/null @@ -1,122 +0,0 @@ -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/ |