Re^4: v5, a reimplementation of P5 (was Re^5: A "Perl-7" that I could actually USE right now)

[raiph]

I did not mean to suggest you are anti P6, rabidly or otherwise. ¹

You say I've "taken "use" to mean 'play with', 'experiment', 'try out'". No, not if the context is serious use. Yes, if the context is a project that is at an early stage in its development, even if the end goal is serious use. You say "that isn't "use"." I disagree. ²

v5 being able to work at the block level is simply part of Larry Wall's slang design. ³ Whether it's naive and unnecessary (your view) or brilliant and pragmatic (mine) it's nothing specific to v5 and it's 100% Larry's responsibility, not FROGGS'. It's also basically sunk cost. So I don't think it's productive to talk further about the cost of building P6 or v5 this way.

I understand the point you were trying to make with "another example of misleading information", but please know that I currently entirely reject the notion that any information I have provided thus far is misleading, including my comments about v5, so I find talk of "another" example completely unreasonable.

According to jnthn (Rakudo's architect) Rakudo's gather/take implementation is lazy, non-batching. According to Larry Wall, Niecza's is lazy and probably non-batching. (Sorear, Niecza's original author did not answer my request for clarification; he's now busy working on Rakudo so it's mostly a moot point.)

I couldn't tell, but it seemed like you might be thinking that batching is sort of laziness-lite. The P6 design specifies four levels of laziness: strictly lazy, mostly lazy, mostly eager, strictly eager. Consider a one million line file. Eager processing will read the whole file in one go. So instead you might want to process it lazily. But do you really want to read it strictly lazily, one line at a time, or would you really prefer a mostly lazy mode that reads lines in batches (even though it still delivers it to your consuming code one item at a time)? Sometimes you really will want to read one line at a time, other times batching is best; the P6 design allows you to control which strategy to use.

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¹ If my memory of the last couple years here at PM serves me right you've kept your P6 comments mostly focused on what you would want from P6; have focused attention on your personal top issues, with CPU bound speed being one I remember (and threads being another from a recent comment); and have otherwise generally held a healthily (primarily technically) skeptical view. I applaud all of this.

² sundialsvc4's original post is clearly focused on serious use. However, it makes no sense to me that, if there were a project with the goal of achieving what he wants, he would not consider using early (or even late) versions of that project to provide feedback. Such usage would not properly be described as serious use but rather as trying it out or playing with it. The seriousness is about the intended usage once the project has delivered on its goal(s), not how one uses it before it gets there. That said, I did not respond to sundialsvc4.

Ralesk's comment specifically focused on an "experiment". Although I'd say "experiment" is not a suitable tag for v5 (3 month old project is better, though that ignores the years of foundation work it builds on), I thought its goal perfectly fit Ralesk's project description. Ralesk responded that he could not actually use v5. First he talks of an experiment, then suddenly it has to be finished even though no other such finished project exists? I think he may have been kidding, but this leads to another problem.

PerlMonks is supposed to be a resource for the silent majority, newcomers to the Perl world, random googlers, and more. A lot of folk who've heard of P6 inaccurately think it's a dead or struggling project that hasn't shipped software. Comments like Ralesk's reinforce that false viewpoint. If I think a commenter is obviously a troll, I generally leave it alone. If it's an obvious joke, I might reply in kind. If not, I sometimes try to figure out a response to set the record straight.

³ Slangs aren't about mixing P5 and P6. They are about recursing into arbitrary sub-languages at any point. P6 itself consists of a series of slangs for general code, regexen, strings, and so forth. Programmers will remain oblivious of this internal reality when first learning P6, and may choose to always ignore it, but the slang architecture is one of several pieces that give Perl, via P6, the capacity lisp has had since the 1950s for supporting continual, fluid evolution and innovation (in lisp's case, by writing s-expressions, in Perl's by writing Perl).

[BrowserUk]

The P6 design specifies ...

Again, you deliberately skirt the actual issue and attempt to filibuster your way past it by quoting fanciful "definitions" from the unrealised -- and in many cases; unrealisable(*) -- hotch-potch of vague hopes and wishes that is called the 'P6 spec'.

The issue is: Does any existing, downloadable version of P6 actually implement any form of laziness?

And the answer is obviously no, otherwise you would not be applying spin. And that makes the Rosetta P6 code claims vapourware at best, or much worse.

And it is false advertising and marketing of that very ilk that has in the past -- and continues at an accelerating rate -- to damage brands far more deeply and permanently than actual lack of functionality or technical failures.

Please heed the warning. The lie of omission is still a lie.

(*You do not want me to get into elaborating this in open forum)

[raiph]

Rakudo's gather/take implementation is lazy. (And so is Niecza's.)

Please reread what I wrote. There is no spin. I can't stop you seeing it if you believe it's there. But it is not there.

I'm hoping that you can see that you misinterpreted my words and were then unfair to me (and P6). I'm hoping you can switch to a space of wonder, love, and open mindedness in response. If so, I have a request. Please look elsewhere in this thread, reading what others say and then interpreting my words as if I was sincere, not spinning (I'm not). Rinse, repeat, (but don't spin) for as long as you see my words in a new light. Then report back here or PM me or just ponder the world. I will appreciate this even if you fail to see things differently. Thanks. :)

Constant misinterpretation is the lot of most humans. I suspect it is my lot at PerlMonks no matter how hard I try. But it would suck if you have permanently joined the ranks of the rabidly anti P6. :P

[BrowserUk]

Rakudo's gather/take implementation is lazy. (And so is Niecza's.)

Really? Why not respond with that in the first place instead of all the fluff you posted?

And what is the basis of that laziness? (Hint: threading? corroutines? continuations? a little man hidden under the table?)

There is no spin. I can't stop you seeing it if you believe it's there. But it is not there.

Right. Were all just seeing things.

But it would suck if you have permanently joined the ranks of the rabidly anti P6. :P

I'm not anti-p6 (rabid or otherwise), just anti-BS.

If it were possible to have a straight conversation about Perl6 -- rather than a "straight conversation (for some definition of the word straight)" -- then I might have gotten on-board; but that hasn't been possible since pugs was frozen out to death.

[BrowserUk]

I'm breaking my promise to stay out of P6 threads by posting this, and I do not do so without some heavy thought, but I think this is important enough to justify it. In my other reply to the above post I said:

And it is false advertising and marketing of that very ilk that has in the past -- and continues at an accelerating rate -- to damage brands far more deeply and permanently than actual lack of functionality or technical failures.

Today I encountered something by a third party that makes this case far better than I ever could: Negative opinions (and even just negative perceptions) persist consciously & subconsciously for a very long time.

Now I'll stick to my promise.