On Wed, 2005-03-30 at 14:58, Nicholas Clark wrote: > Based on the wheat on IRC this evening, is this question/answer worth adding > to the Parrot FAQ on parrotcode.org? > > Pugs is going great shakes - why not just toss Parrot and run Perl 6 on Pugs? > > Autrijus Tang, the lead on the Pugs project, notes that an *unoptimised* > Parrot is already 30% faster than Haskell. Add compiler optimisation and a > few planned optimisations and Parrot will beat Pugs for speed hands down. > Autrijus things that Pugs could be made faster with some Haskell compiler > tricks, but it's harder work and less effective than the Parrot optimisations > we already know how to do.
Good answer, and other than adding a bit about cross-language usage I'd stop there (memory issues are important but complex, and you've already made your point with this brief answer). The next question is: Q: OK, so Parrot is fast... Pugs can back-end to Parrot, right? A: Yes (though at this time, that's in the early stages). Still, the ultimate goal is for Perl 6 to be self-hosting (that is, written in itself) in order to improve introspection, debugger capabilities, compile-time semantic modulation, etc. For this reason, Pugs will probably be the compiler that first compiles the ultimate Perl 6 compiler, but thereafter Pugs will no longer be the primary reference implementation. This is documented by the Pugs team at http://svn.perl.org/perl6/pugs/trunk/docs/01Overview.html -- Aaron Sherman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Senior Systems Engineer and Toolsmith "It's the sound of a satellite saying, 'get me down!'" -Shriekback
