Slashdot Mirror
Parrot: For Real
Thanks to Pudge of Slashteam for pointing out that very early version of Parrot has been released. You may recall Parrot from The April Fool's joke - but it's coming to life.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I can almost feel someone contemplating a sever side module for apache using this as an embedded web page script.
Yikes. I think I just described C#.
John
John
Looks like the roster is coming home to rest. I still think it is going to take a long time to get either side to convert or give and inch, but at least someone is pushing forward.
It will be interesting to see the beta scripts that get pumped out of this.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
...that at least one pair of extremists can get along.
324006
I am still not convinced that this Parrot would voom if you put 5000 volts through it.
The only reason it was standing before was because it had been nailed to the stick.
I emediatly thought of Monty Pythons parrot scetch.
Cracks me up just thinking about it. Its nice to think of something else for a while
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
(A customer enters a pet shop.) ...It was a pun.
Customer: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
C: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
C: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
O: We're closing for lunch.
C: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
O: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's, uh...What's wrong with it?
C: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it! O
: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
C: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
O: No no he's not dead, he's, he's resting! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, isn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
C: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
O: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
C: All right then, if he's resting, I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show...
(owner hits the cage)
O: There, he moved!
C: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
O: I never!
C: Yes, you did!
O: I never, never did anything...
C: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
C: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
O: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
C: STUNNED?!?
O: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was waking up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
C: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
O: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
C: PINING for the FJORDS?!?!?!?What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
O: The Norwegian Blue preferskeeping on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage!
C: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when Igot it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILEDthere. (pause)
O: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
C: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four millionvolts through it! 'E's bleeding demised!
O: No no! 'E's pining!
C: 'E's not pining! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He hasceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to theperch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e'sshuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!! (pause)
O: Well, I'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter)
O: Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh, we're right out of parrots.
C: I see. I see, I get the picture.
O: I got a slug. (pause)
C: (sweet as sugar) Pray,does it talk?
O: Nnnnot really.
C: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?
O: Look, if you go to mybrother's pet shop in Bolton, he'll replace the parrot for you.
C: Bolton, eh? Very well.
(The customer leaves. The customerenters the same pet shop. The owner is putting on a false moustache.)
C: This is Bolton, is it?
O: (with a fake mustache) No, it'sIpswitch.
C: (looking at the camera) That's inter-city rail for you.
(The customer goes to the train station. He addresses a manstanding behind a desk marked "Complaints".)
C: I wish to complain, British-Railways Person.
Attendant: I DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS JOB, YOU KNOW!!!
C: I beg your pardon...?
A: I'm a qualified brain surgeon! I only do this job because I like being my own boss!
C: Excuse me, this is irrelevant, isn't it?
A: Yeah, well it's not easy to pad these python files out to 150 lines, you know.
C: Well, I wish to complain. I got on the Bolton train and found myself deposited here in Ipswitch.
A: No, this is Bolton.
C: (to the camera) The pet shop man's brother was lying!
A: Can't blame British Rail for that.
C: In that case, I shall return to the pet shop!
(He does.)
C: I understand this IS Bolton.
O: (still with the fake mustache) Yes?
C: You told me it was Ipswitch!
O:
C: (pause) A PUN?!?
O: No, no...not a pun...What's that thing that spells the same backwards as forwards?
C: (Long pause) A palindrome...?
O: Yeah, that's it!
C: It's not a palindrome! The palindrome of "Bolton" would be "Notlob"!! It doesn't work!!
O: Well, what do you want?
C: I'm not prepared to pursue my line of inquiry any longer as I think this is getting too silly!
Sergeant-Major: Quite agree, quite agree, too silly, far too silly... (takes customer by the arm) Come on, you, you've got to go do another sketch now! Come on... (he walks off stage left, followed by the director and cameramen, leaving the owneralone on the set)
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Wait a minute. I thought that Parrot (the package, not the April Fool's Joke) was supposed to be the common VM for Perl and Python, or at least that's what I gathered from the mailing list postings I read about it some time back.
The joke was about merging the syntax from the languages, but the real Parrot is about the VM. I think. :-) The details are really sketchy, and I don't have time to look at the code today (esp. since I'm on Solaris and I doubt it'd even compile).
Actually no.
The guy who orchestrated the April Fool's Joke is the pumpking for it. The idea of them working together was a pipe dream that influenced the joke.
"This Parrot ceases to EXIST!"
Why the hell would anyone want to clone Ruby?
Unlike the joke, it is not a combined language !!! It started as an idea as a 'shared bytecode/runtime environment that could be used by both Perl 6 and a future version of Python'
Right now it is a interpreter that does assembly to bytecode only for now as far as I can tell...
Was this only inspired by the April fools joke, or was the 'joke' just a clever way of telling people something like that was in development but to confuse us, then surprise us?
In other words, is larry wall and the python guy collaborating efforts to bring us a new language derived from both? or is this some hackers bringing an actual product out of the joke.
Art imitating life, or life imitating art?
Guido:I wasn't expecting Parrot...
Larry: Nobody expects Parrot! Our chief trait is laziness...laziness and impatience...impatience and laziness...Our two traits are laziness and impatience...and hubris...Our *three* main traits are laziness, impatience, and hubris...and a ridiculous habit of quoting JR Tolkien...Our *four*..no... *Amongst* our traits...are such elements as laziness, impatience...I'll come in again.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/28/174223 7&mode=thread
shit, this was meant to be a reply to this
Wait a minute. I thought that Parrot (the package, not the April Fool's Joke) was supposed to be the common VM for Perl and Python, or at least that's what I gathered from the mailing list postings I read about it some time back.
:-) The details are really sketchy, and I don't have time to look at the code today (esp. since I'm on Solaris and I doubt it'd even compile).
Good thing this is not the real language. Cause I just looked at the test?.pasm files, and thought for a second (despite the name *.?asm) "Hey! This looks like assembler. How the hell can this be a step forward!?" But it is just a VM, and indeed it is sort of assembler language, but this is not what the end programmer sees.
The joke was about merging the syntax from the languages, but the real Parrot is about the VM. I think.
It's only perl - sure it should... "compile". Just did a quick runthrough myself....
TimC.
but the problem is, three-dollar crack has very little to no effect on the human memory.
He probably just forgot that.
When is someone going to implement that 100% data compression sysem I heard so much about around April time? I'm sure it would be very usefull! Just think about all the possibilities!
Jimmy Buffet joke in here somewhere...
As a long time Perl zealot, I'd like to take this opportunity to vigorously protest this move. Posts on both Perl and Python mailing lists suggest that there *is* going to be some compromise at language syntax level to accomodate the common runtime. From the Perl perspective it's like "well, Perl 6 was going to be fully OO anyway, so what difference are going to make a few concession in syntax"? Well, I strongly object! I mean, I spent so much time learning Perl so I could be different and write cool obfuscated "Japh" sigs, and NOW they're going to make Perl look and feel just like every other C# on the planet? I've had it! If THAT's gonna get implemented, I vow to completely abandon my Monk robe and to only code in Visual Basic! Brother Monks, I urge you to join me in my protest so that the despicable traitor Larry Wall will see the error of his ways and will hopefully change his mind about this Frankensteinian abomination! United we will succeed!
:-)
ESR on encouraging the bytecode merge ( http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-J uly/016406.html )
use.perl.org links ( http://use.perl.org/search.pl?topic=parrot )
$ ./test_prog t/test3.pbc
and i've got,
I reg 1 is 0
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
~/.signature
Parrot was an April Fools' gag.
/. editors consider this carefully next April. Otherwise we might have a story about Bill Gates & Bill Joy collaborating to produce a new proprietary rock-solid server GUI.
This is what happens when jokes go bad. I hope the
Windows + Sun = Greenhouse
Sheesh... Then someone will implement it...
I believe this is the low-level "assembly language" of the proposed new perl VM.
Perhaps, though, making a rock-solid Parrot-for-Palm would be a way to get a good implmentation of both languages for Palm. The developers could share with each other, and the OS-specific routines could be held in common (accessed via specific "header files" (modules, etc.)).
Hmmmmm....
Microsoft version:
C:\> deltree
Unix version
rm -r
I believe there was an April Fool's joke many years ago about a 16-bit version of the ARM processor called THUMB. But then only a relatively short time later ARM Ltd announced they were indeed working on a 16-bit frontend to the ARM (basically a new instruction decoder), and now the 'Thumb instruction decoder' is a standard part of many ARM family CPUs.
How many other things started out as an April Fool's day joke and then actually got implemented?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I think he called it Ruby.
The power of perl, without the inconsistency of perl. And shorter source code(from the great language shootout)
-- Make software not war
I don't know, I think all the changes we'll have to endure will be worth it to see the horrified looks on the faces of the Python afficionados when they see what their naturally inferior language is coming to.
First we had TCP/IP over carrier pigeon (suggested
in an April fool's RFC). Now this... What next?
John_Chalisque
Quite agree, quite agree, too silly, far too silly...
/. rarely makes me laugh, but that one was a great one. :) :)
Great. Perl already has created the closest environment to Common Lisp, then we get Ruby taking Perl and heading for Python via Smalltalk, meanwhile Perl decides to reimplement itself as Ruby, and now we want Perl and Python to generate a common byte code. When will these people stop wasting their %^%!@!# time and do something useful, meaningful or at least interesting?!? If half this wasted effort had been spent on CMU-CL (an open Lisp implementation), then it would blow everything away in every domain, rather than its current status as merely faster, more complete, and rock solid. Honestly, you could make a syntax transformation to write lisp that resembled perl, and the only issue would be confusion from it being so much more consistent and thorough in design.
Perl: There's More Than One Way to Do It -- AGAIN.
Sorry, but what's the difference between this and a random bytecode/assembly language ? What's the point if neither Python nor Perl implementation are alpha'ed, too ?
I mean, how could we know if this is adequate for a python bytecode for example ?
Why not use an existing (Scheme/Lisp/Java) bytecode then ?
Besides, I'd be very happy if we could have a somewhat open, Free, standard bytecode. But why (I know there's a because) can't we use something existing ?
No one enjoys a good laugh more than I do. Except perhaps for my wife and some of her friends. Oh, yes, and Captain Johnson. Come to think of it, most people enjoy a good laugh more than I do, but that's beside the point.
It's not dead yet. In fact, it's only just barely alive - so it's still barely capable of trying to gum you to death or to bleed all over you.
Some people just can't take a joke.
byroniverse
You must be ecstatic - the Java VM has been here for a while.
*sigh* What a sorry state our world is in. It seems as though this person is hiding behind the same curtain as those who perpetrated the crime: "Anonymous Coward."
Keep making remarks such as this, and you shall experience the mounting anger our Arabic and Western Asian bretheren have for so long now.
It's people like you, who lash out in such stereotypical ways, that make me believe in the inevitable demise of our great country. Poor form, old chap. Poor form.
btw, i'm white, so don't think for one second that i'm trying to defend 'my own people.' i'm simply defending my brothers and sisters in humanity, of which you obviously shouldn't belong.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Just because someone started working on something intending to be a joke doesn't mean it's not a joke and that anything will come of it.
max
The April Fools are you. I won't use your language!
Simon Cozens, the Perl6 Pumpking, wrote that joke.
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
The first FORTRAN compiler was written in 1954-57.
The first Lisp interpreter was written in 1958-59.
COBOL was started in 1959; the first specification was issued April, 1960 and it takes me more than 2 minutes to find whether a working implementation existed at the time, so you can do it yourself.
Visual Seasick will offer all the elegance and ease-of-use of C++, fused with the raw power and scalability of Visual Basic.
Analyst Larry Bribewell of the respected IT Research firm Rentrag Group, predicts big things for this de facto industry-standard language: "the first release, version 3.1, looks rock solid. We predict [0.8] it will overtake Parrot in quarterly revenue by Q1 2002."
(c) 2001, ZDnot.
I forgot what day it was. They laughed at me for believing in Parrot. They called me mad, but WHO'S MAD NOW?!?!??! MWAHAHAHAHA
Going out to google, a page or so down on this link resembles the chip sheet as I remember it. I'd have sworn I saw it in a mag and don't recall ever reading "Electronic Design".
I was hoping one of the other April fools jokes would have come true: Slashdot on FreeBSD 5.0
:)
Hmm... I guess that would mean FreeBSD 5.0 would need to be released
Success is as dangerous as failure, hope as hollow as fear.
Please run a joke about Bill Gates giving me all his money next time--I would love to see that implemented! :) Alternatively, you could just run one on AOL about how you'll all have bad luck if you don't send me $10 -- that might make me richer still =)
I have a few more ideas if those work...
hi,
:")
1 08 .v2.pdf
The Parrot is the future Perl interpreter, it is some sort of virtual CPU, register based not stack based...
http://dev.perl.org/perl6/architecture
And don't worry Perl will stay Perl
There will be many enhancment in the Perl-the-language too.. Also don't worry most of the Perl5 scripts will work on Perl6 too.. It is supposed also that Perl6 will be faster...
The idea is that the things are separated in some way so that it can be replaced if the user want with other implementation..
And it is not nececary Python, Ruby or other languages to use Parrot as backend... but the idea is that if communities of those languages are interested, the efforts can be combined... if not the Perl community will continue on its own...
No language is threaten to extinct because of this, 'cause the Parrot is lower-level stuff...
Look at the RFC's, Apocalypces and Exegesis at http://dev.perl.org/perl6/ and will get the idea of almost a year DESIGN-PROCESS of the new Perl6.
The Parrot is the first peace of code and it is still very alpha.
Also if u want to get summary of all dload Damian Conway Perl6-Notes:
http://dev.perl.org/perl6/talks/Perl6-Notes-200
the file is 67 KB.
Perl ROCKS
cheers
oops I forgot to mention in my "Short explanation" that on the perl6-internal list already was demonstration of converting Java-bytecode to Parrot-bytecode :")
There is no sense in which the languages will be merged. If moving to Parrot required a substantial change in Python it just wouldn't happen. If Python on Parrot was less efficient than the current Python interpreter, that would also be a major issue.
The one part of the spec that apparently has been implemented...
SPECIAL FEATURES
Because of the employment of the Signetics' proprietary Sanderson-Rabbet Channel the 25120 will provide 50% higher speed than you will obtain.
"Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing - and it was everything that I thought it could be."
http://cvs.perl.org/cvsweb/parrot/docs/overview.po d?rev=1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup
At least the Java byte code is very specific to Java; it doesn't map well into other languages and specifically not well into dynamically typed languages like Perl and Python.
In CVS there's already a mini language (Jako) that can be compiled into Parrot assembler code.
- ask
--
ask bjoern hansen