August 2018 Archives

The 100 Day Plan: The Update on Perl 6.d Preparations

Read this article on Rakudo.Party

Today's is a milestone of sorts: it's 100 days before the first scheduled Rakudo Perl 6 compiler release that will occur after this year's festival of Diwali. As some know, Diwali is also the code name for the next major release of the Perl 6 language, version 6.d, which means there's a high chance that in about 100 days you'll be able to install and use that.

I figured, I'd write a update on the subject.

When?

The oft-asked questions is when is 6.d going to be released. The plan is to have the 6.d specification good and ready to release on this year's Diwali, which is November 6–7.

About 10 days later the Rakudo compiler will be released (compiler-only, not the Rakudo Star), with 6.d language enabled by default. That is, you'll no longer need to use use v6.d.PREVIEW pragma to get 6.d features, and if you wish to get old, 6.c behaviour you'll need to use an explicit use v6.c pragma.

However, there's a ton of work to do and the work is largely done by volunteers, so we have no compunction about delaying the release of any of the deliverables indefinitely, if the need arises.

What?

The 6.d major version of the Perl 6 programming language includes over 3,400 new commits in its specification. The vast majority of these are clarifications to 6.c spec. In other words, most of these define previously undefined behaviour, rather than specify entirely new features.

Many of the clarifications and new features do not conflict with the 6.c specification. If you're using the Rakudo compiler, you are likely already reaping some of the benefits of the 6.d language, as such things do not require explicit use v6.d.PREVIEW pragma.

Those who've seen the 6.d Teasers frequently ask for the full list of 6.d changes. That list does not yet exist, as the spec is still in the process of being reviewed. The changelog will be available some time in October. You may have seen the 6.d prep repo, but that just contains guiding info for coredevs and isn't descriptive of the actual 6.d content.

The aforementioned ton of work includes:

  • Still have to review about 2,100 spec commits
  • Still have ~95% of ChangeLog to write
  • Still have to implement, 7 TODO features, costing 110 hours
  • Still have 0.3 policies to write (a draft already exists, but needs polishing)
  • Review and spec of any new features that were implemented in Rakudo but were not specced in the language
  • Marketing stuff regarding creation of marketing name alias for the language

The Future

Going forward for future language releases, I foresee us doing a point release every 6 months, and 6.e being released 2 or 3 years after 6.d. The previously 6.d-blocking Issue R#1289 still blocks a number of language changes, and all the 6.d changes blocked by that Issue were pushed to later language versions. So, if that Issue is resolved, that will likely be a reason to cut a language release soon thereafter.

Conclusion

The prep work for next major release of the Perl 6 Programming Language version 6.d (Diwali) is in a high gear. There's lots of work to do. Will likely release spec on November 7th, with compiler release following step and being released about 2 weeks after that. The list of changes will be ready in October and does not currently exist in any user-consumable form.

Let the hype begin \o/

-Ofun

Introducing: Perl 6 Marketing Assets Web App

Read this article on Rakudo.Party

As some of you already may have known from occasional tweets and mentions in the Weekly, we have a perl6/marketing repo that contains some flyers and brochures for Perl 6.

With one of the Perl 6 coredevs making a living as a Multi-Media Designer, the repo has seen a steady stream of new pieces designed, when inspiration strikes, or when someone makes a request. There are now several pieces available, but GitHub isn't the greatest interface for this sort of stuff.

Introducing marketing.perl6.org

To make it easier to see what we have available, we made a front-end for our marketing repo, that lets you browse all of the assets. It's hosted at marketing.perl6.org

The Assets

Under the thumbnail of each asset, there are a few buttons that show you which formats are available for download. The last two buttons are the GitHub button and the pencil button. The former will lead you to GitHub to the folder that particular asset is at, where you can download any files that aren't shown on the front end (e.g. the source files). The latter will lead you to the New Issue page on the marketing repo, with title/ID of the piece pre-filled. This is in case you'd like to request different format, size, or some other changes for that piece.

Each piece has an ID number (a Unix timestamp, e.g 1516098660). If you want to refer to some piece, try to include its ID, as that's the easiest way for the designer to know what piece you're talking about.

INB4, the Camelia logo variants are so numerous because the rules allow for her colours to be changed. Personally, I prefer transparent wings, as they're easier on my retinas than the default logo.

Keep in mind, you can request new pieces as well. Just file a new Issue in the marketing repo, describing the content that you want, including the sizes/colour restrictions, and our volunteers will hook you up.

The Prints

While files themselves are easy to make for free, the same isn't the case for hard copies. We (the volunteers handling the marketing repo) can't print any hardcopies for you. Unless you are able to use a local printing company and pay out of your own pocket, your best bet would be to contact The Perl Foundation and ask them if they can sponsor the prints. I know they made prints of the Introducing Perl 6 brochure for a conference in the past.

Licenses

The assets shown in the marketing web app are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The Camelia logo is copyright by Larry Wall. Some of the pieces use purchased stock, which may have licenses that limit super-large print runs (50,000+ copies). Check the files in the repo or contact Zoffix if you have an unusual usecase for the materials and wish to clarify the licensing.

The source files (InDesign/PhotoShop/Adobe Illustrator) themselves can be modified freely, under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Any images/fonts/other assets used by those source files might have additional licensing restrictions, which will usually be noted in the directory for that asset.

Conclusion

Going out for some tech meetup? Print out a few pieces from our marketing web app, hand them out, share the Perl 6 love!

-Ofun

Introducing: Newcomer Guide to Contributing to Core Perl 6

Read this article on Rakudo.Party

An important part of a project is to keep a steady flow of new volunteers coming on board to help you out (that's Hug 1: Gift a Shovel in the Hole Digging Metaphor). Starting out can be difficult: you barely know the people who you're working with and you're not familiar with the codebase or the build toolchain. A bug that will take a regular coredeveloper a minute to fix, test, and ship, might be insurmountable for someone who doesn't know where to start.

Perl 6 can especially benefit from newcomer help, as core development is very easy to get into: a lot of bugs involve pure Perl 6 code, mixed with some NQP subroutine calls that aren't much different than using subroutines from an ecosystem module.

For some time now, the Perl 6 devs labeled easy Issues with particular labels. However, that still leaves some challenges for new volunteers in place: knowing what the labels really mean, knowing how to build the project with the fix applied, and knowing how to run the tests.

The Newcomer Guide

To address those issues, I drafted a Newcomer Guide to Contributing to Core Perl 6 that will be linked to on specially labeled Issues. It's still an early version and will likely see several revisions based on the type of questions new volunteers ask.

It's meant to be a quick guide a programmer can read to get into contributing to Rakudo Perl 6. It's not meant to be exhaustive, so for example things like how to submit a Pull Request or make a commit with git are outside of its scope.

The Z-Script the guide uses haven't seen much battle testing by people without a commit bit to all the repos, so I suspect that will need some improvement as well, as people start to use it.

To The Core Devs

Be sure to label easy issues with the labels mentioned in the guide. Encourage people to fix bugs. The person reporting the bug can be given a few tips on how to fix the very problem they're reporting and asked whether they wish to submit a fix. You never know when a one-off contributor will become a regular core developer.

The Guide promises the core devs will answer questions and help walk the interested volunteers through the fixes of specially labeled Issues, so keep an eye open for such questions and help people out. Also, when filing the Issues for newcomers, add a few tips and suggestions on how the Issue can likely be fixed.

That's It

There isn't much else to say, other than check out the Guide itself and help make Perl 6 better! :)

About Zoffix Znet

user-pic I blog about Perl.