Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for 08-14 April, 2007

  This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists

     "The current pugs implementation is just translating to the old form
     underneath, so it's not surprising it's a bit off. That's the sort of
     thing that happens when the language designer gives the language
     implementor whiplash. However, I rather suspect the interpersonal
     metaphorical meaning was lost on the physicist/comic who decided that
     the 3rd derivative of position should be called 'jerk'. :)"

     -- Larry Wall, in 'What should file test operators return?
     <http://xrl.us/vrq4>'


  Language

   Re: Synopsis 26 <http://xrl.us/vrny>

     Earlier, Thom Boyer responded to Damian Conway's post from November
     which thanked people for offering feedback on the first draft. Thom
     said that he had been unable to find the XHTML version of S26 and
     wondered if it was available.

     Jerry Gay replied that there wasn't a pod parser available yet. Damian
     responded with the requested file, and said he still hoped to finish
     the Pod6 parser but he wasn't sure when he would have time.

     Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason asked if Damian could post the code he
     currently has, so that others could work on it.

     This week, Damian responded by uploading `Perl6::Perldoc` to CPAN.
     Ævar and Damian worked to improve the test suite.

   Does =$*ARGS work? <http://xrl.us/vrq2>

     brian d foy is working on 'Learning Perl 6' and had some questions
     about for the I/O chapter. He saw that `while(<>){...}` became
     `for=$*ARGS{...}` but noted this didn't work in Pugs. He wondered if
     it was a documentation error or an implementation error.

     Moritz Lenz mused about why it wasn't `=@*ARGS` but couldn't answer
     brian's question. brian replied that `$*ARGS` is a filehandle, not a
     list of files. David Vergin remarked that there was a typo in S28 and
     corrected it.

   using <sp> space in character classes <http://xrl.us/vrq3>

     Brad Bowman noted that S05 lists `sp` under named assertions but
     doesn't explicitly mention it in the character class section. He
     wondered if it could be used in that way. Larry Wall replied that it
     could be, but it needs to be generalized.

   What should file test operators return? <http://xrl.us/vrq4>

     brian d foy noted that file test operators return false or the
     filename, when he would have expected a true. He wanted to update S16
     to clarify the situation. Later Larry Wall said he would attempt to
     clarify S03.

     Moritz Lenz and Damian Conway had some suggestions for the syntax in
     brian's code. Juerd Waalboer and Larry Wall also joined the
     conversation on the subject of giving printf a boolean output
     template. They found it too specific.

     Brandon S. Allbery noted that Pugs does not implemented the
     specification as it is documented. He thought junction types aren't
     completely ready.

     John Macdonald and Mark J. Reed also contributed to the thread.

  Parrot Porters

   remove_method vtable? <http://xrl.us/vrq8>

     Jonathan Worthington noted that PDD 15 describes both add and remove
     vtable methods for attributes, parents and roles, but only
     `add_method` exists for methods. He wondered if `remove_method` should
     also exist.

     Allison Randal went ahead and added it, after a bit of internal
     debate.

   [perl #42332] [TODO]: Eliminate t/tools/ops2pmutils/testlib/Capture.pm
   <http://xrl.us/vrq9>

     Ticket [perl #42332] <http://xrl.us/vtwx>, by James Keenan, asked for
     some subroutines to be moved into `lib/Parrot`. This was fixed in
     r18040.

   [perl #42334] PGE compiler faults out "set_integer_keyed() not
   implemented in class 'Undef'" <http://xrl.us/vrra>

     In ticket [perl #42334] <http://xrl.us/vtwy>, Jim McKim reported a
     fault when compiling an example grammar. Patrick R. Michaud replied
     that there was a problem with the cut operator not being applied to a
     particular term. He saw it as a request to improve the error message
     when a cut token is applied to a null term.

   inspect and inspect_str from PIR <http://xrl.us/vrrb>

     Jonathan Worthington reported that he had implemented the
     `inspect_str` and `inspect` vtable methods for the Class PMC. He had a
     question about the implementation. Allison Randal replied that she had
     added an opcode `inspect` and a method `inspect` on roles and classes
     to the PDD.

   [perl #42336] segfault happens with 'parrot --pre-process-only'
   <http://xrl.us/vrrc>

     Jim McKim reported a segmentation fault when Parrot is invoked with
     `-E`. This was ticket [perl #42336] <http://xrl.us/vtwz>.

   [perl #42337] [PATCH]: Configure.pl: Refactor list of steps into
   Parrot::Configure::Step::List <http://xrl.us/vrrd>

     James Keenan created ticket [perl #42337] <http://xrl.us/vtw2> to
     paste a patch which moved some of `Configure.pl`'s functionality
     (listing steps in the configuration process) to a module. This was
     applied as r18157 and r18158.

   [perl #42339] [CAGE] Test Valid and Invalid Parrot Flags
   <http://xrl.us/vrre>

     chromatic reported that there are no tests for Parrot's response to
     invalid command-line arguments. He suggested adding some in ticket
     [perl #42339] <http://xrl.us/vtw3>. James Keenan said that he had
     recently added a test of this sort. chromatic clarified: he meant
     command-line arguments to the Parrot executable, not to
     `Configure.pl`.

   [perl #42349] [TODO] dotnet - fix various ops for 64 bit architectures
   <http://xrl.us/vrrf>

     Paul Cochrane made a note that some ops need to be fixed for 64-bit
     architectures in ticket [perl #42349] <http://xrl.us/vtw4>.

   [perl #42352] [TODO] fix or remove strange TODO item in hash() op
   <http://xrl.us/vrrh>

     In ticket [perl #42352] <http://xrl.us/vtw5>, Paul Cochrane noted that
     `src/ops/pmc.ops` has a todo item marked 'XXX' which lacks an
     explanation of what the problem is.

   [perl #42359] [PATCH] Assorted cleanups - part III (Intel C++)
   <http://xrl.us/vrrn>

     Steve Peters submitted a patch in ticket [perl #42359]
     <http://xrl.us/vtw6>. This cleans up some warnings when compiling
     Parrot with Intel C++. chromatic got some warnings when running the
     patch. He made some changes to the patch and sent it in. Steve said he
     would need to look into it further.

   [perl #42360] [TODO]: Unit tests for Parrot::Revision
   <http://xrl.us/vrro>

     In ticket [perl #42360] <http://xrl.us/vtw7>, James Keenan reported
     that `lib/Parrot/Revision.pm` has no unit tests.

   [perl #42362] [TODO]: Unit tests for modules used during configuration
   <http://xrl.us/vrrp>

     James Keenan indicated that there is a considerable amount of code in
     the `config/` tree which isn't covered by tests. He requested some
     unit tests in ticket [perl #42362] <http://xrl.us/vtw8>.

   [perl #42371] [TODO] check if object.can(method) in callmethodcc() op
   <http://xrl.us/vrrr>

     Paul Cochrane created ticket [perl #42371] <http://xrl.us/vtw9> for a
     todo item in `src/ops/objects.ops`. Jonathan Worthington thought that
     it was unnecessary and suggested removing the comment. Allison Randal
     agreed.

   JSON won't make test <http://xrl.us/vrr3>

     Klaas-Jan Stol submited a patch which alters `json.in` to make it pass
     `nmake test`. It was committed as r18063.

   [perl #42383] [TODO] imcc - if frame->s.file was allocated free it
   <http://xrl.us/vrr5>

     Paul Cochrane created a number of RT tickets based upon 'todo'
     messages in the code source:

     * `compilers/imcc/imcc.l` - [perl #42382] <http://xrl.us/vtxa>,
       [perl #42383] <http://xrl.us/vtxb>, [perl #42384] <http://xrl.us/vtxc>
     * `compilers/imcc/imcc.y` - [perl #42385] <http://xrl.us/vtxd>
     * `languages/regex/lib/Regex/Grammar.y` - [perl #42393] <http://xrl.us/vtxe>
     * `src/opts/pics.ops` - [perl #42353] <http://xrl.us/vtxf>,
       [perl #42354] <http://xrl.us/vtxg>, [perl #42355] <http://xrl.us/vtxi>,
       [perl #42356] <http://xrl.us/vtxj>
     * `src/ops/pmc.ops` - [perl #42350] <http://xrl.us/vtxk>
     * `src/ops/stack.ops` - [perl #42369] <http://xrl.us/vtxm>
     * `src/ops/object.ops` - [perl #2372] <http://xrl.us/vtxn>
     * `src/ops/io.ops` - [perl #42373] <http://xrl.us/vtxo>,
       [perl #42374] <http://xrl.us/vtxp>
     * `src/ops/experimental.ops` - [perl #42375] <http://xrl.us/vtxq>,
       [perl #42376] <http://xrl.us/vtxr>
     * `src/ops/debug.ops` - [perl #42377] <http://xrl.us/vtxs>,
       [perl #42378] <http://xrl.us/vtxt>, [perl #42379] <http://xrl.us/vtxv>
     * `src/ops/core.ops` - [perl #42381] <http://xrl.us/vtxw>

   Parrot Bug Summary <http://xrl.us/vrr8>

     Jerry Gay remarked that the Parrot ticket queue is growing every week;
     there are currently more than 500 tickets, many of them unclassified
     by type. He asked for volunteers to help make the queue more
     manageable.

     In another thread, which was part of ticket [perl #41858]
     <http://xrl.us/vk9x>, Mark Glines said he had taken on the task of
     making a reasonable set of rules for splint. He ran into several
     problems. Paul Cochrane tried to answer the questions as best as he
     could.

   The great "class" variable renaming <http://xrl.us/vrsa>

     Steve Peters has had problems with the use of 'class' as a variable
     name in `struct_vtable`. This needs to change for his compatibility
     work to progress further. He suggested `pmc_class` as an alternative.
     Klaas-Jan Stol remarked that he thought the word `namespace` should
     also be used carefully.

   Class/Role namespace links <http://xrl.us/vrsb>

     Jonathan Worthington began working on the association between classes
     and namespaces specified in PDD15. He had some questions, which
     Allison Randal answered.

   [perl #42406] [PATCH] improper null testing in Parrot_instantiate_object
   <http://xrl.us/vrsd>

     Alek Storm reported in ticket [perl #42406] <http://xrl.us/vtxx> that
     he had a patch to fix a bug in which the `init` vtable method override
     is called instead of `init_pmc`. After one week he wondered why no
     action had been taken.

   [svn:parrot-pdd] r18096 - trunk/docs/pdds <http://xrl.us/vrse>

     A commit by Allison Randal added opcodes and methods for 'inspect' to
     Objects PDD.

   [perl #42407] [PATCH] refactor vtable overriding, delegate.c generation
   <http://xrl.us/vrsf>

     In ticket [perl #42407] <http://xrl.us/vtxy>, Alek Storm submitted a
     patch which refactors and optimizes methods involved in vtable
     overriding.

   [perl #42411] [PARTIALPATCH] Building a 32bit parrot on freebsd under
   amd64 fails. <http://xrl.us/vrsj>

     Joshua Isom created ticket [perl #42411] <http://xrl.us/vtxz> to
     submit a patch which allows Parrot to be configured for 32-bits on a
     64-bit machine. This does not completely fix the problem.

   [perl #42412] Configure.pl things =no is true <http://xrl.us/vrsk>

     Joshua Isom thought that configure should treat `--foo=no` is false
     instead of true. He reported this in ticket [perl #42412]
     <http://xrl.us/vtx2>.

   Severe error <http://xrl.us/vrsm>

     Christian Aperghis-Tramoni reported an error he saw when compiling
     Parrot on Linux.

   call for help: pdd15 implementation <http://xrl.us/vrsn>

     Jerry Gay highlighted the implementation of PDD 15 as a key goal for
     the 0.4.11 release (which has since taken place). He suggested that
     people could help by reviewing docs/code/tests.

   modifying classes after they're instantiated <http://xrl.us/vrso>

     Allison Randal began by remarking that Jonathan Worthington had raised
     the question of the strategy for safely changing classes which already
     have instantiated objects. She offered a few alternatives. Both
     Leopold Toetsch and Allison thought her fourth suggestion was the best
     one. Alek Storm liked it too, but had another option.

     There was some further discussion about the best implementation, with
     Bob Rogers also joining in.

   [perl #42427] [CAGE] cleanup perlcritic errors <http://xrl.us/vrsp>

     Jerry Gay noted that many tests fail in `t/codingstd/perlcritic.t`. In
     ticket [perl #42427] <http://xrl.us/vtx3> he expressed his hope that
     these things could be addressed before the next release.

   [perl #42429] [BUG]: docs/submission.pod: Confusing use of term 'test'
   <http://xrl.us/vrsq>

     James Keenan reported that he found instances of the word 'test'
     confusing in `docs/submission.pod`. He asked for clarification in
     ticket [perl #42429] <http://xrl.us/vtx4>.

   [perl #42430] [PATCH] make :vtable imply :method <http://xrl.us/vrsr>

     Alek Storm created ticket [perl #42430] <http://xrl.us/vtx5>. This
     contained a patch which makes the `:vtable` sub pragma imply the
     `:method` pragma. What followed was a long discussion on why someone
     might want to set `:vtable` without setting `:method`. Alek,
     chromatic, and Allison Randal contributed to this deeply nested
     thread.

   [ANNOUNCE] Hackathon Toronto, Saturday April 28 <http://xrl.us/vrss>

     James Keenan announced a spur-of-the moment hackathon in Toronto. It
     was held on Saturday, April 28th.

   [Proposed PATCH] Change libparrot Names and Locations
   <http://xrl.us/vrst>

     Ron Blaschke proposed a patch to change the libparrot names and
     locations for Windows, which he included in his message. Jerry Gay
     added his comments, and noted that it is nice if tests are included.
     There was some further discussion on how to improve the patch.

   Limiting Exported Symbols on GCC <http://xrl.us/vrsu>

     Ron Blaschke kicked off this thread by wondering if there was a
     feature to limit exported symbols with GCC. Steve Peters was concerned
     about adding GCC features to Parrot, as this could break compatibility
     with other compilers.

     Nicholas Clark remarked that Perl 5 has been successful with using
     flag data in `embed.fnc` and generating annotated headers
     automatically. Jerry Gay agreed with Nicholas and suggested that if a
     function isn't meant for public consumption, it shouldn't be
     available. Joshua Isom suggested that people can use whatever
     functions they want, but if they aren't documented, they are likely to
     be broken in future releases.

     Joshua Isom was concerned that it had been a long time since there had
     been failure-free smokes, and people were becoming accustomed to test
     failures.

     Joshua Hoblitt and nahoo82 also contributed to the thread.

   [perl #42474] [PATCH] Remove dangling enum commas <http://xrl.us/vrsv>

     Steve Peters submitted a patch in ticket [perl #42474]
     <http://xrl.us/vtx6> which removes dangling commas in enum lists. It
     was applied as r18175.

   [perl #42475] [PATCH] Change asm() to __asm__() <http://xrl.us/vrsw>

     In ticket [perl #42475] <http://xrl.us/vtx7>, Steve Peters supplied a
     patch to help Parrot compile with `-ansi -pedantic`. It was applied as
     r18176.

   Bug Day: Saturday, 14 April 2007 <http://xrl.us/vrsx>

     Matt Diephouse announced that Saturday 14 April was a bug day to
     prepare for the 0.4.11 release. This release was made on 17 April.

   [perl #41894] segfault happens when invoking poll op
   <http://xrl.us/vrsy>

     Earlier, Jim McKim created ticket [perl #41894] <http://xrl.us/vtcf>
     to report a segmentation fault.

     Will Coleda offered a patch, which Nuno Carvalho applied. Jonathan
     Worthington reported that the patch broke the build for Win32. He
     committed a correction in r18187. Joshua Isom suggested an alternative
     way of addressing the problem.

  Compiler

   request for a few Pugs parser updates <http://xrl.us/vrsz>

     Darren Duncan asked for a few features to be added to the Pugs parser.
     There were three requests in total, which Darren hoped could be easily
     implemented by the right people.

   pugs: aborting smoke tests <http://xrl.us/vrs2>

     Moritz Lenz reported being unable to do a `make smoke` for the last
     few weeks. Larry Wall thought that the problem looked like a resource
     exhaustion or lockup, possibly related to embedded/tunneled Perl 5. He
     asked for more output, which Moritz supplied. Agent Zhang pointed to a
     post by chromatic which he thought might relate to the solution.

   interactive pugs fails in safe mode <http://xrl.us/vrs3>

     Wim Vanderbauwhede reported failures with interactive Pugs when
     `PUGS_SAFEMODE` is true.

  Acknowledgements

     This summary was prepared using Mail::Summary::Tools
     <http://xrl.us/qvno>, available on CPAN.

     If you appreciate Perl, consider contributing to the Perl Foundation
     <http://donate.perlfoundation.org> to help support the development of
     Perl.

     Thank you to everyone who has pointed out mistakes and offered
     suggestions for improving this series. Comments on this summary can be
     sent to Ann Barcomb, <kudra@domaintje.com>.

  Distribution

     This summary can be found in the following places:

     * use.perl.org <http://use.perl.org/>
     * The Pugs blog <http://pugs.blogs.com/>
     * The perl6-announce mailing list <http://xrl.us/qycj>
     * ONLamp <http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/>

  See Also

     * Perl Foundation activities <http://blog.perlfoundation.org>
     * Perl 6 Development <http://dev.perl.org/perl6>
     * Planet Perl Six <http://planetsix.perlfoundation.org/>

• Weekly Perl 6 mailing list summary for 08-14 April, 2007 by Ann Barcomb