Re^2: Perl 6 shocking revelations #1

[John M. Dlugosz]

Many thanks for the compliments. I am an accomplished writer, but programming magazines aren't what they used to be <sigh>.

I'm working on Perl 6 while I'm on sabbatical, and have been refactoring the documentation into a solid standard specification.

What more might I say about Perl 5 objects? I suppose I could be more explicit in summary, showing the typelessness and freedom compared with C++ etc.

The orthodox documentation has the "french quotes" like %h«hello $world». But every non-ASCII construct has an equivalent. I figured £ would be easier to type than ⍈. You're in China now, so maybe you can easily type 元? Seriously, I expect a lot of brainstorming over that. The important thing is to introduce syntax to correspond to the concepts — choosing a symbol not used for anything else let me not worry about messing up the existing grammar and be more succinct then discussing alternatives. It goes with the "shocking" part, I do think...

—John

[Starky]

With respect to Perl5 objects, I would guess there are three things a Perl5 hacker would be interested in:
1. A simple Perl5 vs. Perl6 example of syntax showing basic inheritance under Perl5 and Perl6
   • It will just give Perl5 hackers a reference point. "Oh, what used to be that now looks like that!"
2. How can the new architecture be best used to improve existing code? Perhaps you could provide one or two examples of the "low hanging fruit."
   • Think about the question that current Perl5 coders will ask: "What is the motivation to change?"
3. How will legacy code have to be changed?
   • For example, if you are using, say, a CPAN module that has been updated to the new object model, what are the most likely "gotchas" that will trigger errors?
   • Are there particularly widely used CPAN modules that you would expect to take full advantage of more restrictive typing or creative polymorphism (and thus possibly present some issues to legacy code)?
An alternative to sprinkling verbiage throughout the paper would be to create a 1-2 page appendix.

P.S. And add a table of contents.

[BrowserUk]

P.S. And add a table of contents.

But only if the references in the toc are clickable links.

Most of the pdfs I read that have tocs are dead text and give references in units, be they page numbers or chapter or section numbers, that bear no relationship to the actual pages as displayed in the bookmark section. Which makes them all but useless. Just so much extra junk that must be navigated to get to the real article.

[John M. Dlugosz]

My thoughts exactly. PDF doesn't have separate screen/print views like HTML CSS, by design, so I can't have a print-only TOC. I added a brief TOC that's not pages and pages long, and turned on the live navigation in the default view.

[blazar]

Most of the pdfs I read that have tocs are dead text and give references in units, be they page numbers or chapter or section numbers, that bear no relationship to the actual pages as displayed in the bookmark section.

I personally believe that as an old time LaTeX aficionado I should beg to differ. I find that most documents compiled with hyperref and either the standard classes or memoir.cls (and surely the Koma ones as well, although I have no experience with them) come out with all sorts of appropriate hyperlinks in the toc and elsewhere. Of course, like anything else in LaTeX, one may have to fiddle with some setting to fine tune the appearance of them and some other details. In this sense, most articles on arXiv are also duly hyperlinked.

[John M. Dlugosz]

Table of contents: Click on the icon to display the TOC or page thumbnails. Or do you specifically need an inline table for printing? I didn't think of that.

I applied some of your ideas in version 1.1, which I updated at the URL.

—John

[Starky]

The "Perl 6 syntax" table at the top of page 3 is extremely helpful, as is the TOC.

Overall, a fun read and a nice piece of work.

[rudder]

... and have been refactoring the documentation into a solid standard specification.

I don't understand. Don't the Synopses already serve that purpose?

[John M. Dlugosz]

No, I'm refactoring the material found in the synopses, gathering all the facts on one thing to make sure they agree, and arranging it into a formal standard. The "gather together" is more important, as the outline is easily changed and the final standard will be hypertext anyway.

I added a link to it on that same page, if you are interested.

—John