http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16844 <pre>Perl 6 is awesome. Its design is based on the combined experience of many clever people. It addresses a whole range of contemporary computing problems, in fields as diverse as text processing and compiler development. It's being developed by, and for, some of the smartest people I want to risk approaching. In short, Perl 6 is awesome: "Extremely impressive or daunting, inspiring awe". http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/awesome?view=uk That is a problem, if we want to get it adopted widely and quickly. I've spent quite a lot of time teaching Perl 5 to a variety of normal commercial programmers. An early part of the course was the arithmetic operators, (+,-,*,/,%). A good many of the classes started to look nervous and uncomfortable around the time I introduced the modulus operator, because it was approaching the boundaries of their experience. (I don't think it was just my deficiencies as an instructor that led them to feel uneasy.) One of the difficulties of teaching a complex subject to any but the most motivated of students is overcoming their fear of that complexity, the feeling that "this is just too hard". There's also the practical consideration that a "solution" more complicated than the problem it addresses doesn't really deserve to be called a solution. Trying to teach adults something they don't need to know is like trying to teach a pig to sing. You will only succeed in annoying the pig. If all you need to do is total some lists of numbers, the ability to construct compilers is not a powerful attraction; it may in fact be a distraction. It's not even a matter of the learner not being terribly bright. It's sobering to visit the "Software Carpentry" site, software-carpentry.org and remember that it is aimed at graduate science students. We all share common limitations to learning, e.g. "the magic number 7, plus or minus 2" http://cogprints.org/730/ Introducing too much at once is counter-productive; it leads to confusion, not knowledge. For a concept to stick around long enough to become an unconscious competence, it has to be reinforced by practice. To encourage practice, it has to be rewarding, i.e. reasonably easy to get right, and do something useful, quickly. The problem we have is to provide a path for learning 6, that presents a comprehensible but useful subset of the language to the average user as soon as possible, while leading the programmer with more complex needs, (and greater abilities), to the features they need or will appreciate. The Synopses are comprehensive. They define the language in great depth, feature by feature, (some features bordering on the pathological, "do not try this at home"). Since they specify what the language is to become, not what is implemented at present, they can be frustrating to follow. Maybe it's just an effect of advancing age, but it's easy to forget the contents of a previous synopsis by the time one has read the next. The Perl 6 Tablets have a similar organisation, and hence the same problem. I haven't recently revisited the book in Rakudo*, but it struck me, last time I looked, as a powerful deterrent to learning the language. It starts with the tricky stuff. There's a paradox inherent in computer documentation; people who thoroughly understand software are probably the wrong people to try to explain it, because they know too much. (That's also true of the current state of the error messages; they assume the reader understands the issues as well as the author. It's forgivable at the present stage of development, but still frustrating.) Larry's metaphor of the Onion seems to be appropriate here. Present a core set of features to make a useful language, ("Perl 6 baby talk") and make a series of increasingly sophisticated and esoteric aspects available as the student becomes adept with the basics. For example, when discussing quoting, single and double quotes are quite enough to start with. All the Q forms can wait. Even then, they may be introduced in stages. Of course, when doing this, the problem is not to make statements that will have to be contradicted later. This concept might even help define when a 6.0.0 is "done" enough to launch. It's going to take a while for the more esoteric features of the language to get used. If they aren't in the first version, it may not cause much inconvenience as long as they are implemented Real Soon. If it does, the inconvenienced might be motivated to help. </pre> Parrot Raiser 2012-05-22T23:35:34 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16843 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: bc016c615d459e4b5e1988e6982a902e515637b6 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/bc016c615d459e4b5e1988e6982a902e515637b6 Author: diakopter &lt;diakopter&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-24 (Thu, 24 May 2012) Changed paths: M S03-operators.pod Log Message: ----------- last batch of my S03 typo/grammaro fixes </pre> GitHub 2012-05-25T00:48:46 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16842 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: a2c030460367c3c14b88f2d04c4ce2c20ff852bf https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/a2c030460367c3c14b88f2d04c4ce2c20ff852bf Author: Matthew Wilson &lt;diakopter&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-24 (Thu, 24 May 2012) Changed paths: M S03-operators.pod Log Message: ----------- first batch of my S03 typo/grammaro fixes </pre> GitHub 2012-05-24T23:42:59 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16841 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 68718e6ad71134a70a93459abdacdd62a9eadcd1 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/68718e6ad71134a70a93459abdacdd62a9eadcd1 Author: Carl Masak &lt;cmasak&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-23 (Wed, 23 May 2012) Changed paths: M S05-regex.pod Log Message: ----------- [S05] ss/&lt;(maximal)&gt; matching/greedy/ Now in a new, even more consistent flavor! </pre> GitHub 2012-05-23T19:43:03 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16840 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: cac7e3035642bae111348a8f7af76fc5372dde26 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/cac7e3035642bae111348a8f7af76fc5372dde26 Author: Carl Masak &lt;cmasak&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-23 (Wed, 23 May 2012) Changed paths: M S05-regex.pod Log Message: ----------- [S05] prefer term "frugal" to "eager"/"minimal" </pre> GitHub 2012-05-23T19:36:10 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16838 <pre>&lt;sisar&gt; r: my $x = 4 + 2i; $x.re = 5; &lt;p6eval&gt; rakudo 45679a: OUTPUT«Cannot assign to a non-container␤ in block &lt;anon&gt; at /tmp/PeeJaa8bWJ:1␤␤» I think $x.re (Real part of $x) and $x.im (Imaginary part of $x) should be allowed to be l-values. What do you say? Will this affect the performance of Rakudo, Niecza ? Recently substr-rw was split off from substr, so that now substr-rw is the lvalue form. So maybe we can have $x.re-rw and $x.im-rw, but that would be really ugly :) -sisar </pre> Siddhant Saraf 2012-05-19T04:05:26 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16837 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: f7e01b5206e8095b187ebf6ec234685dafdb520c https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/f7e01b5206e8095b187ebf6ec234685dafdb520c Author: Moritz Lenz &lt;moritz&lt; at &gt;faui2k3.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-17 (Thu, 17 May 2012) Changed paths: M S32-setting-library/Str.pod Log Message: ----------- [S32::Str] split off substr-rw that way you only pay for what you use </pre> GitHub 2012-05-17T19:12:15 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16836 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 1b8b0ab987cfdcb5ce55c06a36306679d6dca085 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/1b8b0ab987cfdcb5ce55c06a36306679d6dca085 Author: Larry Wall &lt;larry&lt; at &gt;wall.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-17 (Thu, 17 May 2012) Changed paths: M S03-operators.pod Log Message: ----------- mention that prefix:&lt;+&gt; returns failure on failure </pre> GitHub 2012-05-17T19:04:09 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16835 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: cb82d5aa72728cd1bc390dbb1c20b624c01c03b7 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/cb82d5aa72728cd1bc390dbb1c20b624c01c03b7 Author: Larry Wall &lt;larry&lt; at &gt;wall.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-17 (Thu, 17 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- Spec halfwidth corner brackets for Q[] equivalent This is primarily to improve output of strings that mostly want to be complete quoted, to avoid cluttering such output with Q[]. But to allow it for .perl output, we have to allow it on input too. </pre> GitHub 2012-05-17T17:18:07 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16833 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: a424107c4783c1e3db7f84b932d876710fb51713 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/a424107c4783c1e3db7f84b932d876710fb51713 Author: Solomon Foster &lt;colomon&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-11 (Fri, 11 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- Incorporate TimToady++'s suggestions. </pre> GitHub 2012-05-11T21:13:40 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16832 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 1cbef9e02c00f42abd6c2b379df223472aaa6ca9 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/1cbef9e02c00f42abd6c2b379df223472aaa6ca9 Author: Solomon Foster &lt;colomon&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-11 (Fri, 11 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod M S32-setting-library/Numeric.pod Log Message: ----------- Try to make the rules and examples for Rat.perl, Rat.gist, and Rat.Str consistent. </pre> GitHub 2012-05-11T20:30:09 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16831 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: efa4c189e368bbc93640cbfd4c8e0a7b81c3cd9d https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/efa4c189e368bbc93640cbfd4c8e0a7b81c3cd9d Author: Matthew Wilson &lt;diakopter&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-05-10 (Thu, 10 May 2012) Changed paths: M S05-regex.pod Log Message: ----------- missing </pre> GitHub 2012-05-10T21:45:13 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16830 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: e1cc4fa93f1018010e70913a7bddaf15b873076f https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/e1cc4fa93f1018010e70913a7bddaf15b873076f Author: Larry Wall &lt;larry&lt; at &gt;wall.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-09 (Wed, 09 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- also tweak Rat.Str description here for colomon++ </pre> GitHub 2012-05-09T21:32:09 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16829 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 736b403010d2ca26fa0423f4b0e3749c5e15c71e https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/736b403010d2ca26fa0423f4b0e3749c5e15c71e Author: Larry Wall &lt;larry&lt; at &gt;wall.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-09 (Wed, 09 May 2012) Changed paths: M S32-setting-library/Numeric.pod Log Message: ----------- Define Rat.Str to not go through Num Precision is now guaranteed for the integer part, while the precision of the fractional part is limited to the size of the remaining denominator (after subtracting the integer part) plus 1. (The fraction can turn out shorter if the representation is exact.) </pre> GitHub 2012-05-09T21:12:34 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16828 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 00799304600458dd6a37995f2884146cf28593ec https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/00799304600458dd6a37995f2884146cf28593ec Author: Moritz Lenz &lt;moritz&lt; at &gt;faui2k3.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-08 (Tue, 08 May 2012) Changed paths: M S14-roles-and-parametric-types.pod Log Message: ----------- [S14] use :U instead of "where {!.defined}" </pre> GitHub 2012-05-08T08:54:26 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16827 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: b57a05b0e9651323fe6c19e611d92e601d4d8b42 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/b57a05b0e9651323fe6c19e611d92e601d4d8b42 Author: Moritz Lenz &lt;moritz&lt; at &gt;faui2k3.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-04 (Fri, 04 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- [S02] do not use the same variable twice as example, moritz-- lichtkind++ </pre> GitHub 2012-05-04T17:12:36 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16826 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: c964fd8d8d99ef196bba69827a5afc373470db17 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/c964fd8d8d99ef196bba69827a5afc373470db17 Author: Moritz Lenz &lt;moritz&lt; at &gt;faui2k3.org&gt; Date: 2012-05-04 (Fri, 04 May 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- [S02] use a better example for process globals %*PID is not mentioned or explained anywhere else </pre> GitHub 2012-05-04T16:51:18 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16825 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 5bb94ec3ac754edadb7256c23bbdc9410de862d0 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/5bb94ec3ac754edadb7256c23bbdc9410de862d0 Author: Larry Wall &lt;larry&lt; at &gt;wall.org&gt; Date: 2012-04-30 (Mon, 30 Apr 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod Log Message: ----------- Remove =* init; add 'is default(*)' and such The = * initiazer is too huffmanly short, and we need those semantics for other traits anyway, so make it 'is default(*)'. We're also wanting defaults for other containers (such as KeySets), so spec the 'default' trait on containers in general. </pre> GitHub 2012-04-30T19:16:27 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16824 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: e8134ebd4f667e2ba87cbacebc95f49b4d86dbc1 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/e8134ebd4f667e2ba87cbacebc95f49b4d86dbc1 Author: Herbert Breunung &lt;lichtkind&lt; at &gt;cpan.org&gt; Date: 2012-04-29 (Sun, 29 Apr 2012) Changed paths: M S02-bits.pod M S09-data.pod M S32-setting-library/Containers.pod M S32-setting-library/Numeric.pod Log Message: ----------- officially burry Seq, DANGER: some snippets are still in S02 S09 S32/container and numeric </pre> GitHub 2012-04-29T21:14:06 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16823 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: 053a580612e6b123fcc9ac814714861ac1a8f8e8 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/053a580612e6b123fcc9ac814714861ac1a8f8e8 Author: Frederik Schwarzer &lt;schwarzerf&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-04-24 (Tue, 24 Apr 2012) Changed paths: M S32-setting-library/Str.pod Log Message: ----------- [S32] Grammar fix. Commit: 17a1305def1370dda3d8276fe83028c5a89a6833 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/17a1305def1370dda3d8276fe83028c5a89a6833 Author: Frederik Schwarzer &lt;schwarzerf&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; Date: 2012-04-24 (Tue, 24 Apr 2012) Changed paths: M S32-setting-library/Str.pod Log Message: ----------- [S32] Typo fix. Commit: a835127092d4c68576b3a6836059ac3bfceedafa https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/a835127092d4c68576b3a6836059ac3bfceedafa Author: Moritz Lenz &lt;moritz&lt; at &gt;faui2k3.org&gt; Date: 2012-04-24 (Tue, 24 Apr 2012) Changed paths: M S32-setting-library/Str.pod Log Message: ----------- Merge pull request #11 from icwiener/master Just some minor stuff I saw while reading. Compare: https://github.com/perl6/specs/compare/d3ec849...a835127 </pre> GitHub 2012-04-25T06:50:55 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language/16822 <pre> Branch: refs/heads/master Home: https://github.com/perl6/specs Commit: d3ec849849832255be559a9213d761a9531860d7 https://github.com/perl6/specs/commit/d3ec849849832255be559a9213d761a9531860d7 Author: Herbert Breunung &lt;lichtkind&lt; at &gt;cpan.org&gt; Date: 2012-04-24 (Tue, 24 Apr 2012) Changed paths: R S32-setting-library/IO.pod~ Log Message: ----------- dang i have to remove another temp file </pre> GitHub 2012-04-24T19:38:58 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.comp.lang.perl.perl6.language