From 0e02471de9509b040d3199c556ac5cc963550a03 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Elizabeth Mattijsen Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:36:58 +0200 Subject: Preliminary work on Rakudo Star 2013.09 announcement --- docs/announce/2013.09.md | 92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 92 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/announce/2013.09.md diff --git a/docs/announce/2013.09.md b/docs/announce/2013.09.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b6f478 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/announce/2013.09.md @@ -0,0 +1,92 @@ +# Announce: Rakudo Star Release 2013.09 + +## 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 2013 release of "Rakudo Star", a useful and usable +distribution of Perl 6. The tarball for the September 2013 release is +available from . 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 2013.09] of the +[Rakudo Perl 6 compiler], version 5.5.0 of the [Parrot Virtual +Machine], plus various modules, documentation, and other resources +collected from the Perl 6 community. + +[release 2013.09]: + https://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/blob/nom/docs/announce/2013.09.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: + ++ candidate argument to bless removed (per spec change) ++ @a.VAR.name and %h.VAR.name implemented ++ The $var.++ and $var.() syntaxes work ++ tr/// implemented ++ Sockets on JVM implemented ++ Sets/Bags/KeySet/KeyBag now up to spec, except for the empty set symbol '∅' + +This release also contains a range of bug fixes, improvements to error +reporting and better failure modes. + +Please note that this release of Rakudo Star does not support the JVM +backend from the Rakudo compiler. While the JVM backend mostly implements +the same features as the Parrot backend, many small IO bits are still +missing, rendering some crucial parts like the module installer unusable. +We hope to provide a JVM-based Rakudo Star release soon. + +The following features have been deprecated or modified from previous +releases due to changes in the Perl 6 specification, and are planned +to be removed or changed as follows: + + * `postcircumfix:<[ ]>` and `postcircumfix:<{ }>` will become + multi-subs rather than multi-methods *IN THE NEXT RELEASE* of Rakudo + Star. Both at_pos and at_key will remain methods. + + * All unary hyper ops currently descend into nested arrays and + hashes. In the future, those operators and methods that are + defined "nodal" will behave like a one-level map. + + * The Str.ucfirst builtin is deprecated; it will be replaced by + Str.tc. In the next Rakudo Star release, use of Str.ucfirst will actually + generate a warning upon first usage. + + * 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. + +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 + * 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 +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 . + +See 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 +, ask on the +mailing list, or join us on IRC \#perl6 on freenode. -- cgit v1.1