Perl 6 Essentials

Preface

There is nothing as scary to the average programmer (to the average human, really) as the single word “change.” Change means taking the time to learn a new way of doing things. Changes can be annoying: moving to a new home, finding the shelves reorganized at your neighborhood computer store, or ordering your favorite beer at your favorite pub only to be told they don’t make it anymore. But changes can also be good: a vacation on the beach, a promotion, a raise, finding the perfect shortcut to work that shaves 20 minutes off your commute. This book is all about change . . . the good kind.

Perl 6 isn’t far enough along to support a book on the level of Programming Perl. As development goes on, though, we’ve found that the accumulated lore of the past few years is quite an entry barrier for new people. This book is a snapshot of the current status, designed to ease that first step. It covers the project through Apocalypse 6 and the 0.0.10 release of Parrot. Because Perl 6 is rapidly changing, we’ll publish a revised edition of the book every year until Perl 6.0.0 is released.

How This Book Is Organized

This book has seven chapters:

• Chapter 1 is a high-level overview of the project, with some history of how and why the project was started.

• Chapter 2 provides more detail on life cycles within the project and how to get involved.

• Chapter 3 explains some of the principles behind Perl 6 design work.

• Chapter 4 is an introduction to Perl 6 syntax.

• Chapter 5 explains the overall architecture ...