On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm happy to announce the January 2014 release of Rakudo Perl #72 "Plano". Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Parrot Virtual Machine, the Java Virtual Machine and the Moar Virtual Machine[^1]. The tarball for this release is available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/>.
Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star distribution[^2] --- it's announcing a new release of the compiler only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see <http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>. The Rakudo Perl compiler follows a monthly release cycle, with each release named after a Perl Mongers group. The January 2014 release is code-named after Plano, because that suggestion was way better than "Three Blind Mice". <masak> hm, so what should we name this release... <PerlJam> Fred <TimToady> Three Musketeers <TimToady> Three Stooges <TimToady> Three Blind Mice <TimToady> Three Little Pigs ... <TimToady> maybe we should name it Plano because that implies at least three dimensions <jnthn> oooh! <PerlJam> +1 <jnthn> TimToady++ Some of the changes in this release are outlined below: + `Numeric.narrow` to coerce to narrowest type possible + Can now supply blocks with multiple arguments as sequence endpoints + The `eval` sub and method are now spelled `EVAL` + Method calls and hash/list access on `Nil` give `Nil` + Added support for MoarVM; passes >99% of the spectests that Rakudo JVM does + Implement more parts of `NativeCall` for the JVM + Fixed gather/take stack overflow bug in JVM backend These are only some of the changes in this release. For a more detailed list, see "docs/ChangeLog". The development team thanks all of our contributors and sponsors for making Rakudo Perl possible, as well as those people who worked on Parrot, the Perl 6 test suite and the specification. The following people contributed to this release: Jonathan Worthington, Tobias Leich, Timo Paulssen, Moritz Lenz, Will "Coke" Coleda, Brian Gernhardt, Carl Masak, Rob Hoelz, Geoffrey Broadwell, Kevan Benson, Solomon Foster, grondilu, diakopter, Elizabeth Mattijsen, Mouq, Jonathan Scott Duff, Tadeusz Sośnierz, lue If you would like to contribute, see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>, ask on the <perl6-compi...@perl.org> mailing list, or ask on IRC \#perl6 on freenode. The next release of Rakudo (#73), is scheduled for February 20, 2014. A list of the other planned release dates and code names for future releases is available in the "docs/release_guide.pod" file. A Rakudo development release typically occurs a few days (often two) after the third Tuesday of each month. On behalf of the development team, I encourage you to enjoy the new release, try awesome stuff, and get back to us with feedback. [^1]: See <http://6guts.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/moarvm-a-virtual-machine-for-nqp-and-rakudo/> and <http://moarvm.org/> [^2]: What's the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo Star distribution? The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language. Nothing else. The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection of useful Perl 6 modules, a module installer, the most recent incarnation of the "Using Perl 6" book, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo compiler to enhance its utility. Rakudo Star is meant for early adopters who wish to explore what's possible with Rakudo Perl 6 and provide feedback on what works, what doesn't, and what else they would like to see included in the distribution.
