We agreed on not terrible feature names for PPC0027: keyword_any and keyword_all. These can now be merged.
This led to a brief excursion on the fact that it would be good to have proper iterators as part of the language. But we quickly agreed that the PSC meeting is too small of a margin for that subject.
We talked about the failure of “experimental features”, and possible approaches to remediate that problem. It is going to be difficult to address technically. Philippe pushed for a PPC about the subject.
We took note of the upcoming freeze period and surveyed the changes we think should be merged beforehand. The only thing we weren’t already tracking is the coderef-in-stash optimization, which we decided should be reverted once again and re-attempted earlier in the cycle next time.
This is a continuation of a series of articles about how to write XS libraries that are more convenient and foolproof for the Perl users, while not blocking them from using the actual C API.
If you spot anything wrong, or want to contribute suggestions, open an issue at the GitHub repo
Wrapping Transient Objects
One frequent and difficult problem you will encounter when writing XS wrappers around a
C library is what to do when the C library exposes a struct which the user needs to see,
but the lifespan of that struct is controlled by something other than the reference the
user is holding onto.
As from today, when I announce a new version of one of my TiddlyWikis, I'll list the 2 most recent parts of the change log. These are just copies of the most recent parts of the para called VersionInfo.
And why 2 parts? To help those who missed the last announcement.
o Author:
- Ron Savage
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- http://savage.net.au
- https://symboliciq.au
- https://quantumiq.au
- https://metacpan.org/author/RSAVAGE
o version:
- Perl extension for Version Objects
- https://metacpan.org/dist/versionhttps://metacpan.org/dist/version
We spent most of our time on the PPC process, and started by merging Dave Cross’s PR for a static PPC web site. Many thanks to Dave once again.
We discussed revising the PPC process, and started by picking more specific names for the various statuses of a PPC, which we’ll soon apply to the existing PPCs.
Now I want it to be available for Perl and in progress of coding it.
The progress is happening here
The progress is happening at a moderate pace.
Currently this runs okay on windows, and should also be okay everywhere else (not tested)
Lots of progress is done already.
Lots of work needs to be done.
I think I've crossed an imaginary equator recently and expect it to be finished in a month or two.
Please let me know here about your ideas, so I could add to the module.
PS.
This post is a slight misuse of the "blogs.perl.org" resource, because I want to create some small corner for developers discussion about it, so I am doing an attempt to invite interested people comment about development here.
I had written a Math paper which was not good enough to be published in a journal, yet I wanted to have proof of the date I wrote it on so I could post the paper on the web without other people later being able to question who first came up with the idea.
The way I thought was more correct to do this was to publish the paper's sha256 checksum on the Bitcoin blockchain. Posting the SHA on social media (such as x.com) was not enough, as paid members can edit their old posts.
I got in touch with BBRTJ, the maintainer of Bitcoin::Crypto, who was very helpful in teaching me how to use his module and achieving my aim.
The goal, he told me, was to include the SHA256 checksum as the comment (technically the 'NULLDATA') of a small bitcoin transaction.
I'm resigning from the board position at TPF (The Perl Foundation) also known as TPRF (The Perl and Raku Foundation).
tl;dr
After eight years with the foundation board, the time has come for me to step down. While I'm leaving the board, I intend to remain an active member of the Perl community and continue contributing in meaningful ways for Perl users and developers. You'll still see me at various Perl events; and perhaps Raku ones, too.
Over the years, I've learned a great deal, (hopefully) made a positive impact, and had a lot of fun.
Why I'm stepping down #1. The board needs a refresh
As I've noted before, having long-term board members at a nonprofit has advantages and disadvantages. My resignation opens the door for new perspectives and ideas. The foundation's board has started searching for backfill, which is good for the board's long-term success.
People usually don't think about Perl's type system. Some would even mistakenly claim it doesn't have one. It is, however, a most unusual one that doesn't really look like anything else.
What is a type anyway? And what is a type system? I'm not going to precisely define it here, that's for academics, but generally speaking a type is a fundamental property of a variable or value that determines what operations can and can not be done with it and what invariants it must hold. In a strong type system it is a stable trait: it can't change over the lifetime of the value/variable.
In some type systems containers are typed (such as C) and values really don't exist separate from containers. In other typed systems containers are typeless but values are typed (e.g. Python, Javascript, ). There are languages where both values and containers are typed (e.g. Java, C#), typically this means that the container constrains the values in it.
Contrary to what you might expect, Perl has the latter sort of typesystem, but with a twist.
FOSDEM 2025 is just around the corner, and you know what that means—great talks, amazing people, and of course… fantastic food! 🥂
The Perl and Raku Foundation (TPRF) is once again bringing the community together for a special dinner during the FOSDEM weekend. If you’re an active member of the Perl and Raku ecosystem, this is your chance to relax, connect, and celebrate with fellow developers, contributors, and enthusiasts.
📅 When? Saturday Evening, during FOSDEM weekend
📍 Where? A great venue in Brussels (details will be shared with registered attendees)
💬 Who? Active community members, contributors, and Perl/Raku enthusiasts
Why You Should Join 🍻
Meet fellow Perl and Raku hackers in a relaxed, social atmosphere.
Celebrate our open-source wins with great conversations and laughter.
Enjoy a delicious meal, because good food makes great coding even better!
Forge new collaborations and chat about everything from regex wizardry to the future of Perl and Raku.
We talked again about Perl 42. We think it may already be too late for it in this cycle, so we want to make a thorough case for it by releasing a side tarball for the end of this cycle, and if no technical blocker is found, actually do the jump to 44 in the next cycle.
We listed out next steps for the next point release.
Aristotle summarized the suggested simplification of our plan for TLS in core, but a fuller discussion next week is necessary.
PPC 0014 (English names) has no implementer.
There was a branch for PPC 0021 (Optional chaining) but the implementer hit a wall and got stuck.
Regarding the dual PPCs 0030 (equ) and 0031 (eq:u), we lean towards the former. Options would be cleaner if we had a big and regular set of them across operators, but neither is the case, and they constitute an extra concept.
Many thanks to Dave Cross for providing an initial implementation of a PPC index page. We decided to merge it as is, then iterate on the PPC process afterwards, instead of doing it the other way around.
There are several competing philosophies for wrapping external C libraries. One is that the XS module should hide all the details of the library and provide a clean “Perlish interface”. The opposite extreme is that the external C functions should be exposed to Perl using an extremely minimal XS layer, or the Foreign Function Interface (FFI) and all the logic for working with the library should be written in Perl.
I advocate something in the middle. I think that a good interface should expose as much of the low-level as possible (to make the most usage of that library possible by other Perl modules) while “padding the sharp edges” so that it is difficult for Perl-side usage to crash the program. Higher level features can be provided in addition to the low level API via XS, Perl modules, or both.
We talked a bit about PPC 0025 (Perl version), but didn’t say anything new
Regarding PPC 0030 (new operators) vs PPC 0031 (flags on operators), we continue to think that flags on operators bring more confusion than value (PSC #168). Perl is an operator-rich language, so adding new operators when needed sounds right.
As for the discussion on implicit stringification of references, we think that adding more runtime effects to strict doesn’t really fit. The issue would likely be better addressed with a new warning (and is very similar to the uninitialized warning when dealing with undef).
Adding a SECURITY or SECURITY.md file to your Perl distributions will let people know:
How to contact the maintainers if they find a security issue with your software
What software will be supported for security issues
The contact point is very important for modules that have been around for a long time and have had several authors over the years. When there is a long list of maintainers, it's not clear who to contact.
You don't want people reporting security vulnerabilities in public on the RT or GitHub issues for your project, nor do you want a post on IRC, Reddit or social media about it.
Otherwise, a single email address is acceptable. An alias that forwards to all of the maintainers or at the very least, a single maintainer who has agreed to that role will work.
