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in reply to Re^2: What is Perl6?
in thread What is Perl6?

not loaded with technical distinctions that most people will find confusing needlessly.

I provided technical details since you seem to be asking for them. There's no need to know any technical details. All you need to know is that you need rakudo to compile the program, and parrot to run it.

They can't share the same name since they're unrelated projects.

I always found Java naming conventions terrible.

It's the web site that was terrible. The distinction is actually quite straightforward.

JVM is an imaginary machine whose assembler language is Java Bytecode, the product of Sun's compiler. It's not a term you should have to deal with.

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Re^4: What is Perl6?
by punkish (Priest) on Nov 22, 2010 at 02:01 UTC
    I provided technical details since you seem to be asking for them. There's no need to know any technical details. You need rakudo to compile the program, and parrot to run it.
    And that, in my view, is the crux of the problem. Even if I don't want to know any technical details, I have to "write" programs in Perl 6, "compile" them with Rakudo, and "run" them with Parrot.

    This is something I don't have to do with Perl 5. Having worked with Perl 5 for the past 5-6 years, I have written my programs in Perl, and used the perl binary (call it the compiler or the run-time) to run them. Going from version 5 to version 6, and having this change seems to be quite a significant point of inflection.

    Anyway, the point now is -- I understand the difference between the three now, but I don't necessarily appreciate them. To the extent that I have to convey to others what I do with Perl, I will try to keep it simple by telling them that I use Perl, write in Perl and run Perl.

    To me, it seems, that will be a simple, easy to understand message.

    --

    when small people start casting long shadows, it is time to go to bed
[reply]

      This is something I don't have to do with Perl 5. [...] I understand the difference between the three now, but I don't necessarily appreciate them

      Yes, and this caused you to be stuck with using one implementation. With Perl6, you are not locked with one vendor. For example, you could use another implementation such as pugs instead of rakudo. (Although I believe the development of pugs has stalled.)

[reply]
      And that, in my view, is the crux of the problem. Even if I don't want to know any technical details, I have to "write" programs in Perl 6, "compile" them with Rakudo, and "run" them with Parrot.

      FWIW parrot is supposed to be completely transparent in thhis process (once it's installed) - you just run your program with whatever executable the compiler provides.

      Perl 6 - second systems done right
[reply]

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