SPUG: Rakudo Perl 6 release 21 ("Seattle")

[Andrew Sweger]

Wow. I didn't expect this (I mean I expected the release, just not the
naming it "Seattle"):

particle writes

> On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm pleased to announce the
> September 2009 development release of Rakudo Perl #21 "Seattle".
> Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Parrot Virtual Machine.
> The tarball for the September 2009 release is available from
> http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/downloads .
> 
> Due to the continued rapid pace of Rakudo development and the frequent
> addition of new Perl 6 features and bugfixes, we recommend building
> Rakudo from the latest source, available from the main repository at
> github. More details are available at
> http://rakudo.org/how-to-get-rakudo.
> 
> Rakudo Perl follows a monthly release cycle, with each release code
> named after a Perl Mongers group. September 2009 is code named
> "Seattle" for the enthusiasm they have shown for Perl 6 during monthly
> meetings, and the feedback, encouragement and support given me for the
> past several years.
> 
> Since the 2009-08 release, Rakudo Perl builds from an "installed
> Parrot" instead of using Parrot's build tree. This release of Rakudo
> requires Parrot 1.6.0. For the latest information on building and
> using Rakudo Perl, see the README file section titled "Building and
> invoking Rakudo". (Quick note: the "--gen-parrot" option still
> automatically downloads and builds Parrot as before, if you prefer
> that approach.)
> 
> Also, unlike previous versions of Rakudo Perl, the "perl6" (or
> "perl6.exe") executables only work when invoked from the Rakudo root
> directory until a "make install" is performed. Running "make install"
> will install Rakudo and its libraries into the Parrot installation
> that was used to build it, and then the executables will work when
> invoked from any directory.
> 
> Some of the specific major changes and improvements occuring with this
> release include:
> 
> * Rakudo is now passing 15,497 spectests, an increase of 3,128 passing
>   tests since the August 2009 release. With this release Rakudo is now
>   passing 71.5% of the available spectest suite.
> 
> * Rakudo now supports contextual variables.
> 
> * Rakudo now supports the rational (Rat) data type.
> 
> * Rakudo now supports overloading of many of the builtin operators,
>   many of which are now defined in the core setting. Many have also
>   been improved to be more faithful to the specification with respect
>   to types and coercions.
> 
> * Substantially improved support for trait handling. Most of the "built-
>   in" traits are now defined in the core setting.
> 
> * The %*ENV variable now works properly for modifying the process
>   environment.
> 
> Since the Perl 6 specification is still in flux, some deprecated
> features have been removed from Rakudo. Prominently among those are:
> 
> * '=$handle' is deprecated in favor of '$handle.get' (one line) and
>   '$handle.lines' (all lines).
> 
> * 'int $obj' is deprecated in favor of '$obj.Int'.
> 
> The development team thanks all of our contributors and sponsors for
> making Rakudo Perl possible. If you would like to contribute, see
> http://rakudo.org/how-to-help , ask on the perl6-compiler at perl.org
> mailing list, or ask on IRC #perl6 on freenode.
> 
> The next release of Rakudo (#22) is scheduled for October 22, 2009. A
> list of the other planned release dates and codenames for 2009 is
> available in the "docs/release_guide.pod" file. In general, Rakudo
> development releases are scheduled to occur two days after each Parrot
> monthly release. Parrot releases the third Tuesday of each month.
> 
> Have fun!