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Re^9: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018

by LanX (Saint)
on Apr 17, 2018 at 08:39 UTC ( [id://1213046]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re^8: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018
in thread Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018

I'm very busy for the rest of the week, so I can't elaborate much for the moment.

My "management strategy" would be to get people involved.

  • Formulating vision/goal to achieve, like Perl 6 semantics with named variables.
  • Prioritizing features (like clarity over speed)
  • Explaining difficulties
  • Asking for contributions
  • Possibly offering a grant and steering competition

I think many people would like to contribute if they understood the system better.

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery

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Re^10: Curious about Perl's strengths in 2018
by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Apr 21, 2018 at 13:08 UTC
    My "management strategy" would be to get people involved.
    Well, that's very nice and all that, but it's been tried before, many times, in many different ways, under various leaderships. And to a certain extent it's worked. Apart from Abigail, none of the 10 top committers in 2017 was around in 2000, so we've all been recruited since.
    I think many people would like to contribute if they understood the system better.
    There is copious documentation on the perl internals, and people on p5p are always willing to help answer questions. But fundamentally, perl is an exceedingly complex language, with many weird and wonderful features (like ties) all interacting with each other in unexpected and exponentially complex ways. To a large extent the internals are complex because they reflect this. They're also complex because they were originally written that way. And because much of the internals are exposed via the XS API (and since XS can and sometimes does access non-API internals too) it's very hard to rewrite the internals into a clean, modern form that would be easy to learn, without breaking everything; even if we had the manpower to do so.

    Dave.

      Thanks, but I don't know how these things apply to subroutine signatures.

      For instance how does the XS interface hinder the implementation of proper signatures?

      Cheers Rolf
      (addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
      Wikisyntax for the Monastery

        Thanks, but I don't know how these things apply to subroutine signatures. For instance how does the XS interface hinder the implementation of proper signatures?
        Well, I was talking in general terms about why perl5 doesn't tend to get new features, in response to your general compliant about the management of perl5.

        But specifically for signatures, there are many things that can break in XS. For example, if we introduce new op types to handle signature processing, then XS modules which manipulate the optree, or which assume certain ops at the start of a sub, or which modify op behaviour by changing their pp_addr function pointer, may all break. Or modules which use keyword plugins and make certain assumptions about allowed syntax. Or XS code which directly manipulates @_. Or code which attempts to hook into subroutine entry and exit. Or profilers that think they know all valid op types.

        There are many things that can break just that I can think of; when deployed, there will be other things that break that hadn't even occurred to me.

        Dave.

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