Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials: The Community's Rewrite of Perl

by Allison Randal, Dan Sugalski, Leopold T tsch

Overview

Distilling many years of Perl experience—including an insiders look at Perl development (the authors are members of the Perl 6 core development team)—Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials, 2nd Edition is an unparalleled preview of major changes in the widely-anticipated Perl 6. This sneak peek of what's coming in Perl includes succinct but thorough coverage of groundbreaking new developments in Parrot—the language-independent interpreter engine that will execute code written in the new Perl 6 language. Designed to be language independent, Parrot can be used to interpret other dynamic languages such as Python, Tcl, Ruby, and even Java. Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials also uncovers the most revolutionary change in the language itself—Apocalypse 12 on objects. The Apocalypse design documents (in the sense of "revealing", not "end-of-the-world") explain significant changes in new Perl 6 features, numbered according to the chapters in O'Reilly's landmark Camel book , Programming Perl. Apocalypse 12 is the result of cutting-edge research in object-oriented languages and is guaranteed to grab the attention of any serious Perl programmer. Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials also includes expanded coverage of Apocalypse 5 (regular expressions) and Apocalypse 6 (subroutines). Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials is the only book available to chart the course of the long but fruitful voyage of Perl 6. It reveals all the ingenious developments that will make Perl 6 more powerful and easier to use. Perl gurus and programmers alike will rely on this slim but essential book for both a clear view of the Perl horizon and to ensure they hit the ground running once this important new version of Perl is released.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596007379
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/28/2004
Series:	Essentials
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Allison Randal is the assistant project manager of the Perl 6 core development team. She has been working closely with Damian Conway and Larry Wall on Perl 6 and has co written the "synopses" of Perl 6. She is dedicated to the success of the project and is one of the very first to learn about anything new that's proposed for Perl 6.

Dan Sugalski is the chief architect for Parrot, the interpreter engine for Perl 6. He's been a Perl 5 core developer for years, writing more than a dozen modules in the process. He's been a contributor to The Perl Journal and The Perl Review, as well as the O'Reilly Network.

Leopold Totsch hails from Austria where he first started working with computers in 1976. He is an independent software developer who has been exploring and developing open source software since 1991. He's a frequent contributor to isdnlog (an open source project for monitoring ISDN lines and optimizing telephone costs) and spends the majority of his free time working on Parrot, the language-independent interpreter developed as part of the Perl 6 design strategy. Leopold T tsch is the pumpking for Parrot.

Table of Contents

Preface; How This Book Is Organized; Font Conventions; Using Code Examples; We’d Like to Hear from You; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Project Overview; 1.1 The Birth of Perl 6; 1.2 In the Beginning . . .; 1.3 The Continuing Mission; Chapter 2: Project Development; 2.1 Language Development; 2.2 Parrot Development; Chapter 3: Design Philosophy; 3.1 Linguistic and Cognitive Considerations; 3.2 Architectural Considerations; Chapter 4: Basic Syntax; 4.1 Variables; 4.2 Operators; 4.3 Control Structures; Chapter 5: Subroutines; 5.1 Using Subroutines; 5.2 Parameters; 5.3 Arguments; 5.4 Subroutine Stubs; 5.5 Subroutine Scope; 5.6 Anonymous Subroutines; 5.7 Multi Subroutines; 5.8 Curried Subroutines; 5.9 Wrapped Subroutines; 5.10 Lvalue Subroutines; 5.11 Macros; Chapter 6: Objects; 6.1 Using Objects; 6.2 Classes; 6.3 Roles; 6.4 Delegation; 6.5 Private and Public; 6.6 Subroutines; 6.7 Submethods; 6.8 Multiple Dispatch; Chapter 7: Grammars and Rules; 7.1 Using Rules; 7.2 Building Blocks; 7.3 Modifiers; 7.4 Built-in Rules; 7.5 Backtracking Control; 7.6 Hypothetical Variables; Chapter 8: Parrot Internals; 8.1 Core Design Principles; 8.2 Parrot’s Architecture; 8.3 The Interpreter; 8.4 I/O, Events, and Threads; 8.5 Objects; 8.6 Advanced Features; 8.7 Conclusion; Chapter 9: Parrot Assembly Language; 9.1 Getting Started; 9.2 Basics; 9.3 Working with PMCs; 9.4 Flow Control; 9.5 Stacks and Register Frames; 9.6 Lexicals and Globals; 9.7 Subroutines; 9.8 Exceptions and Exception Handlers; 9.9 Events; 9.10 Threads; 9.11 Loading Bytecode; 9.12 Classes and Objects; 9.13 Writing Tests; Chapter 10: Parrot Intermediate Representation; 10.1 Statements; 10.2 Variables and Constants; 10.3 Symbol Operators; 10.4 Labels; 10.5 Flow Control; 10.6 Subroutines; 10.7 Methods; Chapter 11: Parrot Reference; 11.1 PASM Opcodes; 11.2 PIR Directives; 11.3 PIR Instructions; 11.4 Parrot Command-Line Options; Colophon;