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When a couple months ago I rekindled the naming debate—the discussion on whether "Perl 6" should be renamed—I didn't expect anything more than a collective groan. That wasn't the case and today, I figured, I'd post a progress report and list the salient happenings, all the way to my currently being the proud owner of 6lang.party domain name.

The "Rakudo" Language

The "new" name I mentioned in my original post was Rakudo. As many quickly pointed out, it wasn't the greatest of names because it was the name of an implementation. Yes, I agree, but originally I thought few, if any, would be on board with a new name, or extended name, and Rakudo was basically the only name people already were using, so it stood out as something that could be "hijacked."

The Blog Post Fallout

There was quite a bit of discussion on r/perl, r/perl6, and blogs.perl.org. The general mood among the Perl community members who aren't avid 6lang users was that the entirely new name was a good idea. However, the 6lang users, and especially core devs, overall, argued "Perl 6" still had some recognition benefits and should not be removed entirely.

The middle ground was aimed at then: extend the language name. The "official" name would be among the lines of "Blah Perl 6" and users opposed to the 4-letter swear word would just use the name extension on its own, while those who feel the original name has benefits can still reap them.

The decision on the naming extension was placed on the 6.d language release agenda, with the final call on whether and with what the name should to be extended to be done by Larry, when we cut the 6.d language release.

The 6lang

Fast-forward two months. A kind soul (thank you, by the way!) asked Larry what he thought about the naming debate during the last Perl Conference:

Larry opined that we could have other terms by which Perl versions or Perl distributions are marketed as. So that gives us an option to pick an alternative name to be the second name with any "official" standing. Personally, I really like this idea; even more than name extension, because should there indeed be more benefit to the name without "Perl" in it, the alternative name will naturally become the most-used one.

Another core dev, AlexDaniel++, coined an alternative name: spelt 6lang; can be pronounced as slang, if you want to be fancy. I really liked the name, so I jumped in and registered 6lang.party

<AlexDaniel> Zoffix++ for making me recognize the need for
     alternative name. For a long time I was against
<AlexDaniel> and honestly, I can start using something like 6lang
     right away. “Rakudo Perl 6” is infringing on
     language/compiler distinction so I'm feeling reluctant
<Zoffix> OK, I'll too start using 6lang
* Zoffix is now a proud owner of 6lang.party :D
<timotimo> wow
<AlexDaniel> that was quick

And a couple of hours later, our Marketing Department churned out a new poster:

The drawback is that the name can't be used as an identifier… and Larry doesn't think it's a terribly sexy name.

* TimToady notes that 6lang isn't gonna work anywhere an identifier
     needs a leading alpha
<TimToady> it's also not a terribly sexy name
<TimToady> I could go for something more like psix, "where the p is silent
     if you want it to be" :)

Although, on the plus side, the name has the benefit that alphabetically it sorts earlier than pretty much any other language.

<AlexDaniel> If we see “6lang” as a more marketable alternative, then
     the fact that some things may not parse it as an identifier
     practically does not matter. However, this little bit is quite useful:
<AlexDaniel> m: <perl5 golang c# 6lang ruby>.sort.say
<camelia> rakudo-moar 39a4b7: OUTPUT: «(6lang c# golang perl5 ruby)␤»
<AlexDaniel> :)
<AlexDaniel> .oO( AAAlang – batteries included )

To 6.d Release And Beyond

So that's where things progressed to so far. No official decisions have been made yet, but we're thinking about it and playing with the idea. The decision on the naming debate is to be made during 6.d release.

Having learned a painful lesson from The Christmas release, we're reluctant to put down any dates for 6.d release, but I suspect it'll be somewhere between the upcoming New Year's and It's-Ready-When-It's-Ready.

See you then \o

Read this article on Rakudo.Party

When I first joined the Rakudo project, we used to say "there are none right now; check back in a year" whenever someone asked for a book about the language. Today, there's a whole website for picking out a book, and the number of available books seems to multiply every time I look at it.

Still, I feel something is amiss, when I talk to folks on our support chat, when I read blog posts about the language, or when I look at our official language documentation. And it's due to that feeling that I wish to join the Rakudo book-writing club and write a few of my own. I dub it: The Rakudo Book Project.

The Books

The Rakudo Book Project involves 3 main books—The White Book, The Gray Book, and The Black Book—as well as 2 half-books—The Green Book and The Cracked Book.

The White Book will aim to provide introductory material to the Rakudo language. The target audience will benefit from prior programming experience, but it won't be strictly necessary for computer-savy people. The target audience is "adept beginners", as some might call it.

The book will cover most of Rakudo's features a typical Rakudo programmer might use in their projects, but it won't cover every little thing about each of them. By the end of the book, the readers will have written several programming projects and will be comfortable making useful, real-world Rakudo programs. More in-depth coverage of the language will be provided by The Gray Book, which is what The White Book's readers would read next. The Black Book will reach even deeper, exploring all of the arcane constructs. The progression through the books can be thought of as a plant growing in a flower pot. Initially, the roots extend through a large area of the pot, but they don't go all the way to all the walls and are rather sparse. As the plant grows, more and more roots shoot out, covering more and more volume of the pot. Same is with the books; while reading The White Book alone will let the plant survive, the root coverage will be sparse. However, by the end of The Black Book, the reader will be an expert Rakudo programmer.

Those three books are the core of my planned project. They're supplemented by two half-books on each end of the knowledge spectrum. The Green Book will target absolute programming beginners and get them up to speed just enough so they would be able to comfortably continue their learning using The White Book. On the other end of the spectrum is The Cracked Book. It's a half-book that follows The Black Book and won't provide more advanced techniques per say, but rather arcane "hacks" or even "bad ideas" that one might not wish to use in real-life code but which nevertheless provide some insight into the language.

The Cracked Book is yet a faint glimmer of an idea. Whether it will actually be made will depend on how much more I will want to say after The Black Book is complete. The Green Book is currently a bit amorphous as well. I have a 12-year old sibling interested in computers, so The Green Book might end up being a Rakudo For Kids.

The likely order in which the books will be produced is White, Gray, Green, Black, and Cracked. It's an ambitious plan, and so I won't be making any promises for producing more than one book at a time. Thus, the current aim is to produce just The White Book.

The Price

The digital versions of the books will be available for free.

Since Rakudo development can always use more funding, I plan to run crowd-funding campaigns during each of the book's development. 100% of all the collected funds will be used to sponsor Rakudo work (sponsoring someone other than me, of course). The campaigns will start once half of the target book has been created and the backers will get early preview digital copies as the book is developed further, as well as honourable mentions as Rakudo sponsors in the book itself.

Thus, the first Rakudo Core Fundraiser will launch once I have the first half of The White Book finished. I'm hoping that will happen soon.

The Why

Other than the obvious reason why people write the books—giving an alternate take on the material—I'd like to do this to cross off an item off my bucket list. Having written a terrible non-fiction book, lackluster fiction book, and a decent illustrated children's book, I hope to add a great technical book to the list, to complete it. I figure, with 5 books to attempt it, I'll be successful.

As for my alternate take, I hope to squash the myth that Rakudo is too big to learn as well as carve out a well-defined path for learners to follow. Just as I could make a living 10 years ago, when I barely spoke English, so a beginner Rakudo programmer can make useful programs with rudimentary knowledge of the language. The key is to not try to learn everything at once as well as have a definite path to walk through. Hence the 5 separate books.

I'm hoping at the end of this journey I will have accomplished all of these goals.

See you at the first Rakudo Core Fundraiser.