Apocalypse 12 From Larry Wall

rheum101 writes "Larry Wall just released the eagerly anticipated Apocalypse12 . detailing Perl6 OO in all it glories. To quote the author -> 'One other note: if you haven't read the previous Apocalypses and Exegeses, a lot of this is going to be complete gobbledygook to you. (Of course, even if you have read them, this might still be gobbledygook. You take your chances in life...).'"

Comments

Many Informative Links

[Pan T. Hose]

I have submitted a story but it was rejected, so please let me resubmit it as a first post instead.

The long awaited Apocalypse 12 by Larry Wall has been just announced by chromatic on perl6-language mailing list. It is one of the most important documents explaining the Perl 6 language design. (All of the previous design decisions are available as Apocalypses by Larry Wall, Exegeses by Damian Conway and Synopses by Luke Palmer, Damian Conway and Allison Randal.) Apocalypse 12 talks about Object Oriented aspects of Perl 6, i.e. about Objects, Classes, Roles (also known as Traits), Multiple Dispatch and also covers some non-OO decisions:

"The official, unofficial slogan of Perl 6 is "Second System Syndrome Done Right!". After you read this Apocalypse you will at least be certain that we got the "Second System" part down pat. But we've also put in a little bit of work on the "Done Right" part, which we hope you'll recognize. The management of complexity is complex, but only if you think about it. The goal of Perl 6 is to discourage you from thinking about it unnecessarily." --- Larry Wall.

(Lameness filter didn't allow me to post the table of contents. Reason: Please use less whitespace.)

You can access the entire document as a print friendly version. The standard version of Apocalypse 12 is divided into 20 parts. Enjoy.

If you are new to Perl 6 and Parrot, then Perl 6 Essentials by Allison Randal, Dan Sugalski and Leopold Tötsch might be a great introduction. The second edition should be published soon.

Looks like progress to me

[moof1138]

I have a lot of Perl code out there that is probably going to take a while to port, but I have to say that a lot of the changes here really do make me sigh in relief. Lots of what Larry was going over here are the bits I am looking forward to in Perl 6. I use OOPerl, but never have really liked it. The object system will finally make a lot more sense, and be a lot more intuitive for those coming from other OO languages. The fact that we will real classes instead of magic packages, we get to use the keywords 'class' and 'method' rather than 'package' and 'sub', we se dots to dereference objects instead of ->, and so on are nice. There still are a lot of the clever perlisms left over, and there are a lot of cool looking innovations in perl 6, and I am happy with that.

Over all I am really excited about Perl 6. I know it will take a lot of relearning, and some code is going to be a bitch to update, but porting isn't necessarily required unless there is a compelling reason to move to 6, and the more I read about the cleaner approaches to old problems in Perl 6 the more I like it. I also expect many of the changes should help raise Perl above some of the criticisms of language snobs.

No switching between $, @ and %

[Pan T. Hose]

The same goes for the syntax. All the switching between $, @ and % is really irritating (ask a newbie how to get at the length of the keys array of a hash inside a hash, for example), and the changes proposed for 6 are just making this worse [emphasis added]

The changes proposed for Perl 6 means no switching between $, @ and % any more.

Thank you!

[Pan T. Hose]

In the name of the entire Slashdot community, I would like to thank Larry Wall for the absolutely amazing work he is doing. Thanks Larry! There are many people working very hard to make our dream come true and give us the most innovative and cutting-edge programming language in existance, which Perl 6 is soon going to be. It would not be possible without all of the Perl 6 and Parrot contributors. Please let us also not forget about brave people who still actively maintain Perl 5 and will keep doing it even after Perl 6 is ready. The Ponie project shows us that Perl 5 is not going away. The work of all of those people is invaluable. And this is all to give us free software development platform of the 21st century, while uniting Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Scheme, Ook, Forth, Befunge, BASIC and many other languages thanks to Parrot, finally allowing them all to seamlessly work together and ending the flame wars between them. Thank you!

Optional Mandatory Cross-Disciplinary Joke

[moof1138]

The whole doc is really fascinating, and full of witty Larry Wallisms, but for those who don't read it all the way through to the last page, the Apocalypse ends with a 'Optional Mandatory Cross-Disciplinary Joke for People Tired of Dogs' section:


Biologist: What's worse than being chased by a Velociraptor?
Physicist: Obviously, being chased by an Acceloraptor.



Followed by a 'Future Directions' section:

Away from Acceloraptors, obviously.


Larry Wall is so cool.

Dot verus arrow

[JusTyler]

The use of arrow where most of the rest of the world uses dot was confusing.

Perl has always done things in a way that someone thought was 'right' when they coded it, and which isn't necessarily based on standards. I would contest that everyone else was doing it wrong here, and that the arrow makes way more sense, as it implies hierarchy, whereas a dot does not.

Everyone is Right

[Pan T. Hose]

ruby? Python? Kid's toys.

Common Lisp. Enough Said. Okay maybe Scheme, if you're a bit of a masochist...

Everyone is right here. There is no one language which is best for everyone. Perl 5, Perl 6, Ruby, Python, Lisp, Scheme... They are all going to target Parrot so we will be able to choose our favourite language and still work together instantiating our objects and even inheriting from each other's classes crossing the cross-language boundaries. A very impressive work has already been done in the 0.1.0 "Leaping Kakapo" version of Parrot. See: Parrot FAQ and the languages directory in the CVS.

It does bode *very* well for Perl 6

[Pan T. Hose]

Aha! So even Larry Wall admits Perl is all "gobbledygook"! This does not bode well for Perl 6.

As a matter of fact, it does bode well for Perl 6. Even very well, I might add. As Larry Wall has said in his famous State of the Onion speech on TPC4: "Perl 5 was my rewrite of Perl. I want Perl 6 to be the community's rewrite of Perl and of the community." Also, please let me quote the first Apocalypse: "What I will be revealing in these columns will be the design of Perl 6. Or more accurately, the beginnings of that design, since the design process will certainly continue after I've had my initial say in the matter. I'm not omniscient, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding. This job of playing God is a little too big for me. Nevertheless, someone has to do it, so I'll try my best to fake it. And I'll expect all of you to help me out with the process of creating history. We all have to do our bit with free will." Now, I can assure you that those four years were not wasted as you seem to imply. I think Larry Wall has used the right words on OSCON 2003:

• We the unwilling,
• led by the unknowing,
• are doing the impossible
• for the ungrateful.
• We have done so much for so long with so little
• We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.

How true...

Troll feeding

[IpalindromeI]

The reason this post seems almost like a good post is that it's a subtle troll.

It shows up in most of the Perl 6 stories.