From bd2b55abf2a5071479ce0918a45f4f1f343d64a9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Moritz Lenz Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:53:18 +0200 Subject: draft a 2012.04 release announcement --- skel/docs/announce/2012.04 | 78 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 78 insertions(+) create mode 100644 skel/docs/announce/2012.04 (limited to 'skel/docs/announce/2012.04') diff --git a/skel/docs/announce/2012.04 b/skel/docs/announce/2012.04 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3f8656 --- /dev/null +++ b/skel/docs/announce/2012.04 @@ -0,0 +1,78 @@ +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 . + +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 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, + +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 incomplete 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 . + +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 + 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 perl6-compiler@perl.org +mailing list, or join us on IRC #perl6 on freenode. + +[1] http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo +[2] http://parrot.org/ -- cgit v1.1