A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall

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Re: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by JavaFan (Canon) on May 07, 2010 at 09:16 UTC
I may be wrong here, but thats what I felt after reading the statement 'Only perl can parse perl'. The statement "Only perl can parse Perl" (mind your capitals!) doesn't come from the fact that it's hard to parse Perl, or that it requires a Larry Wall. It comes from the fact that to parse Perl, you may have to run Perl. And there's only one executable that runs Perl: perl. (For the sake of the argument, I'm excluding any Perl6 implementation - they didn't exist when the phrase was coined).	[reply]
Re^2: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by jettero (Monsignor) on May 07, 2010 at 10:34 UTC
... doesn't come from the fact that it's hard to parse Perl, or that it requires a Larry Wall. It comes from the fact that a parse Perl, you may have to run Perl. This is the only correct response I can see so far. Perl6 already has more than one parser. The problem isn't that it's hard to parse it's that it has to be executed during the parse so you can't have Vim or your syntax checker always doing the parse correctly. -Paul	[reply]
Re: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by moritz (Cardinal) on May 07, 2010 at 09:00 UTC
I don't get it. Either perl can be parsed, or it can't. If it can't, then Larry can't either. Humans underly the same computability limitations as machine models.	[reply]
Re^2: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by Anonymous Monk on May 07, 2010 at 09:06 UTC
You got it correctly, and thats my point. The whole thing about only Larry Wall having the power to do such a job stems from the fact there exists one and only one binary written by Larry Wall which can parse perl. All other attempts(if they have been ever made?, I don't know) have failed to produce a program that match the existing perl binary. If all that is true and then only Larry Wall can write a Perl 6 implementation.	[reply]
Re: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by Khen1950fx (Canon) on May 07, 2010 at 09:35 UTC
I agree with you, but just remember that it was Larry's decision that Perl6 be a community effort, thereby spreading some of his powers around.	[reply]
Re^2: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by jdporter (Paladin) on May 07, 2010 at 15:58 UTC
Yep. `s/Larry/\@Larry/ for $OP;` What is the sound of Windows? Is it not the sound of a wall upon which people have smashed their heads... all the way through?	[reply] [d/l]
Re: A philosophical proof that, a perl6 implementation can be written only by Larry Wall by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on May 26, 2010 at 07:06 UTC
Your statement "only a binary executable called 'perl' written by Larry Wall can parse it" assumes that perl can only be written by Larry Wall. Just because he did in fact write the original version does not mean that the perl which is the only way to parse Perl has to be written exclusively by him or even had to be originally written by him on a philosophical level. Larry having written it and it being exclusively able to parse the language fully are two disjointed facts which do not necessarily depend upon one another at all. So, even ignoring the very good advice you've received about the behavior of dynamically parsing the language based upon earlier parsing and partial execution being the cause for the issue, your conclusion that only Larry could write perl6 to parse Perl6 is flawed.	[reply]