So are you suggesting that Ponie be written in Perl 6 or Perl 5? If you want to remain consistent with the self hosting approach and maximize the Perl 5 userbase, the Ponie compiler Perl should be written in Perl 5, and thus self hosted as well via itself on Parrot. If this were the case, work on bootstrapping Ponie in Perl 5 could begin now.
On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 15:46:21 -0400, "Millsa Erlas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > > Being a Perl 5 user myself, I believe that it would be the best idea to > write the final Perl 6 compiler targetting Parrot ideally in Perl 6 or > at least some other higher-high level language such as Haskell. The > reason behind this is this would allow the compiler to be maintained by > Perl 6 developers who do not have a lot of experience with lower-high > level or medium level languages such as C/C++ or PIR/IMC. I believe a > Perl 6 compiler written in C would be a bad idea and would in fact > repeat one of the major problems with Perl 5. It would lock out Perl > developers (like me) who do not know C from being able to understand and > improve upon the compiler. C is not an easy language for many to use or > learn and there are many people who are not proficient in it. C for me > and many Perl developers is not a pretty or a pleasant language to deal > with. > > A self-hosting Perl 6 will require of course an implementation of Perl 6 > in another language. Pugs seems to be quite far ahead in this respect, > quite a bit has already been accomplished with Pugs so it would seem to > me to be most efficient and quick to turn Pugs into a Parrot targetting > compiler. > > Sure, Perl 6 being self hosting will require a previous version of Perl > 6 to compile the new version. But I really dont see this as a problem, > many other languages are self hosting, like C, where the exact same > thing is done. I just dont think its a problem at all. It is a > reasonable trade-off for having a compiler that is eisier to read, > understand, debug, and which can be read and improved > by the same Perl community that uses it, which I think is essential. > > I believe, in order for Perl 6 and Parrot to be more widely used, needed > is a fully functional Perl 6 compiler targetting Parrot, and the Ponie > project to allow all existing Perl 5 and XS modules to be accessed from > Perl 6 and for Perl 6 modules to be accessed from Perl 5. Perl 5 and > Perl 6 should be able to co-exist alongside each other, sharing the same > library of modules, and being able to use modules written in either > language, or XS. This is essential, and quite important, and the most > efficient thing to do, since the work done on existing Perl 5 modules, > including XS ones, would not need to be duplicated, and people would be > able to use the full collection of Perl 5 and XS libraries with Parrot, > Perl 5 and Perl 6, which is one of the things that I need, and I suspect > most people need, to be able to start using Parrot and Perl 6, and > prevents needless duplication of the same functionality in multiple > languages. Once Ponie is completed, new versions of Perl 5 could use the > Parrot VM, and Perl 5 and Perl 6 would be able to share the same Parrot > VM. > > I believe Ponie and a Parrot targetting Perl 6 compiler (Pugs > initially), is probably one of the most important and essential parts of > Parrot and Perl 6 and getting these into a useable state as soon as > possible.
