Re^10: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler

listen, I'm not saying you have done a bad job. I know you are doing something new which no one has done before. So its obvious there are a lot of unknown unknowns which create these rewrites and correction every now and then.

But you've got to understand realities of practical software development. When you say your next release is going to break simple programs of a user. That release doesn't qualify as a production release. Its a experimental release at the maximum. And most people when they learn about this will never bother to even adopt your release. This is precisely why Rakudo star releases aren't getting traction. Because you are saying the users, that the release contains some features, you don't quite really have documentation for it, CPAN isn't compatible, and there is no guarantee of the same features working fine in the next release.

This doesn't qualify to be a production release. Now lets look at the Perl 5 release. Once something is released, it goes out with a documentation. If something needs to be changed or removed or added there are deprecation cycles. And CPAN is always compatible.

Perl 6 production release need has to be feature complete. It will be impractical on our behalf to expect that. But it needs to adhere to most common definitions of production release. Its these experimental releases that are really messing up the perception.

Comment on Re^10: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^11: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by moritz (Cardinal) on Nov 29, 2011 at 08:53 UTC
chromatic expresses very strong opinions on what we are doing wrong, but refuses to tell me what would be right way. I want to learn what he thinks would be a better way, or have him stop his ranting. Perl 6 - second systems done right	[reply]
Re^12: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Anonymous Monk on Nov 29, 2011 at 09:30 UTC
In short. You need one minimal feature complete, completely backwards compatible, documentation ready, CPAN compatible product. After that in future releases you need to gradually grow it. Is it clear now.	[reply]
Re^13: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by chromatic (Archbishop) on Nov 29, 2011 at 18:55 UTC
I'm comfortable without complete backwards compatibility. I expect the spec to continue to change in places. In an ideal world, that's the risk you take in using a Perl 6 implementation today: Larry reserves the right to change his mind on what 6.0.0 will be until he officially blesses what 6.0.0 will be. I can deal with that. What I don't consider "ready" or "usable" is a project which makes a big splash about how it's going to produce something "not complete, but ready for early adopters to begin using" which will be "refined and improved and released regularly", then slips its release for several months, makes a couple of releases, slips from monthly or so releases to "every three months", then undergoes yet another rewrite of core components, makes a half-hearted release of an abandoned line of code because "it's really about time we did another release", then slips more releases because that "just a minor refactoring, really!" is taking a long time and (unlike what the word "refactoring" means) produces quite a few regressions. My business had a product we intended to release to actual clients about the time of Rakudo Star. We were all set to get things going around April last year. Then Rakudo Star slipped to July, and it was obvious that Rakudo Star wasn't of the quality we could use. (You might remember I did some measurement and performance work in Parrot around that time. Performance wasn't everything we'd hoped for, but we were counting on regular releases and about a 5% or 10% improvement every release—which we were able to produce—to be viable for early adopters just starting to explore the system.) I kept the project around until late December and then January of this year, when it became obvious that the nom rewrite (again, if you cause regressions when you refactor, you're not refactoring) would take far longer than claimed. (If you want to predict what other people will do, pay more attention to their history than their estimates.) I was ready to scuttle the project then, but one of my business partners talked me into wait and see mode. (I appreciate the bitter irony that said partner wasn't even keen on starting the project, as I am the only one among us who was, but the opportunity cost of watching and waiting was minimal.) That project's not going to happen in 2012. I've cut our losses. I don't know what of the existing product will be salvageable if Rakudo can get its act together. I don't know what will work if another implementation becomes viable. Now then, someone go on and tell me yet again that "Perl 6 is usable right now!" because I was ready to ship a product with it almost a year and a half ago, and it's still not ready for that.	[reply]
Re^13: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by moritz (Cardinal) on Nov 29, 2011 at 09:49 UTC
Yes. Thank you. And you won't get that, because the Perl 6 specs doesn't have such a core <update>yet, and won't get it very soon</update>. Please move along. Perl 6 - second systems done right	[reply]
Re^14: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Herkum (Parson) on Nov 30, 2011 at 21:00 UTC
Re^15: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by moritz (Cardinal) on Dec 02, 2011 at 08:56 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^15: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Anonymous Monk on Nov 30, 2011 at 21:50 UTC
Re^14: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by wfsp (Abbot) on Nov 29, 2011 at 10:23 UTC
Re^14: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Anonymous Monk on Nov 29, 2011 at 11:10 UTC
Re^15: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Corion (Patriarch) on Nov 29, 2011 at 12:34 UTC
Re^12: Waiting for a Product, not a Compiler by Anonymous Monk on Nov 29, 2011 at 09:05 UTC
I want to learn what he thinks would be a better way, or have him stop his ranting. What ranting, where!?	[reply]