We didn’t have a meeting last week. This week, everyone was here.

• We briefly talked about builtin. We think a numify function is quite necessary.
• We started reviewing release blockers for v5.42.

[P5P posting of this summary]

sub some_field : lvalue { state $value = 'some_default' }

(We know, of course, that “class data” is OOPese for “global variable”.)

Environment variable PERL_RAND_SEED in Perl v5.38
Please checkout the post for more information:
https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/random-in-perl

Sie bieten, wir catchen!
nicsell ist ein Domain-Backorder-Dienst, auch Dropcatcher genannt, der es Ihnen ermöglicht, auf eine Vielzahl freiwerdender Domains zu bieten, die sich aktuell in der Löschungsphase befinden.
Schon ab einem geringen Startgebot von 10 € können Sie an unseren Auktionen teilnehmen und haben die Chance an Ihre Wunschdomain zu gelangen.
Übrigens: Zur Verstärkung unseres Teams in Osnabrück suchen wir engagierte Perl-Entwickler (m/w/d). Bei Interesse freuen wir uns auf Ihre Bewerbung!

Nicsell

All three of us attended, but none of us had the time for significant discussion, so we decided to reclaim the time and make some progress on our various to-do list items.

[P5P posting of this summary]

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.

Available now: Perl.Wiki.html V 1.23.

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

Hi there!

Recently I tried this port of turbovision and was really impressed by it.

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.

• wiki
• discord
• please let me know what else

Back to the full roster, albeit with Philippe attending from on the road.

We mainly went over the list of PPCs, with an eye toward the fact that this release cycle is coming to a close.

• PPC0033 (ampersand method calls) is approved.
• PPC0030 (equ) does not have an implementation ready for this release cycle and PPC0031 (eq:u) is controversial.
• PPC0027 (any/all) is basically accepted other than needing its feature flag naming figured out.

As an aside regarding PPC0027, we reiterated that we would like use feature ':all' to go away if possible. It was never a good idea anyway, but has become untenable with the introduction of feature flags like indirect and bareword_filehandles, which we expect to have many more of in the future. Since their purpose is to be disabled rather than enabled by default, a simple toggling of all features (on or off) is a nonsensical request.

[P5P posting of this summary]

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.

All three of us were present:

• 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.

[P5P posting of this summary]

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.

Secure Your Spot! 📝

We are very happy to announce that OTOBO supports the German Perl Workshop!

Die Rother OSS GmbH ist Source Code Owner und Maintainer der Service Management-Plattform OTOBO.

Gemeinsam mit der Community entwickeln wir OTOBO kontinuierlich weiter und sorgen dafür, dass das Tool zu 100 % Open Source bleibt.

Unsere Kunden unterstützen wir mit partnerschaftlicher Beratung, Training, Entwicklung, Support und Managed Services.

Perl Wiki V 1.22

Only Philippe and Aristotle this time.

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.

[P5P posting of this summary]

Special variable ${^LAST_SUCCESSFUL_PATTERN} in Perl v5.38
Please checkout for more information in the post below:
https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/perl-regex

Intro

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.

Adding a SECURITY or SECURITY.md file to your Perl distributions will let people know:

1. How to contact the maintainers if they find a security issue with your software
2. 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.

If your software is on GitHub, you can set up private vulnerability reporting. GitLab has a similar system.

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.