Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK

Brethren,

What a discussion! Thank you very much to everyone who has given their input, and all the lurkers out there, and all the Perl users (direct & indirect) everywhere - it is for you that Perl exists and that (hopefully) someday Perl 5 will be even more awesome than it is now. Also, much respect to Nick Clark, Reini Urban, Ingy, and the others who are actively mentoring me on this quest.

The aforementioned notwithstanding, this message is my love letter to the 3 most important personalities in our ongoing discussions here at Perl Monks.

Dave Mitchell

Dave is the Perl 5.10 Pumpking, and (with the possible exception of chromatic) is the most knowledgeable and experienced Perl core developer to contribute to our online debate.

Dave seems to be frustrated by what he perceives as others (like me) just "not getting it", in reference to how difficult (or impossible) it may be to achieve significantly increased Perl 5 runtime performance.

Dave's technical views are clearly justified.

Dave may also be the most qualified person to guide us in the development of a Perl5-on-LLVM project, regardless of potential performance benefits.

chromatic

chromatic (SW?) is a prominent Perl contributor and author, who is clearly quite familiar with the deep technical issues related to building a Perl 5 optimizing compiler.

chromatic's opinion seems to be filtered through a healthy does of skepticism, although perhaps he is a bit more willing than Dave to suspend his disbelief when given a conservative view of the LLVM project. (Maybe I'm just jumping to crazy conclusions again, hopefully I will be corrected if this is so.)

chromatic's technical views are clearly justified.

Like Dave, I believe chromatic possesses much of the skill needed to guide our initial development efforts. He has indicated his tentative willingness to be of some help in the future.

BrowserUK

BrowserUK is a Pope here on Perl Monks, and an active Perl developer with a more-than-passing understanding of the Perl core.

BrowserUK has been the most vocal supporter of the possible benefits offered by LLVM, going so far as to begin compiling parts of the Perl core using LLVM and posting about the results.

BrowserUK's views on the future of LLVM and Perl 5 are clearly justified, even if his technical views are legitimately questioned by chromatic and Dave.

From private correspondence, it seems BrowserUK may have some feelings of regret surrounding the heated debate and potentially negative energy in the comments of my previous threads.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

I think all 3 guys are good, logical programmers who really do have the best intentions for Perl at heart. I feel bad that my threads are causing arguments, but at the same time I can see the possibility of fruitful ideas coming out of the fray once the dust has settled.

So, my question and sincere proposal is this:

Dave & chromatic, will you please continue to put up with the (perhaps ignorant) points-of-view of myself and BrowserUK?
Will you please not give up on us and the possibility of a better Perl 5 for everybody, even if not in the sense of a super-fast runtime I espouse?
Will you please use your powers to guide us and help us avoid traps that are obvious to only you?

Pretty please with cherries on top? ;-)

Love,
~ Will

PS - I really do think that the refactoring required for Perl5-on-LLVM will benefit the Perl core developers at the very least, even if we fall short of the blinding speed I hope to achieve.

Comment on Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Sep 01, 2012 at 17:28 UTC
Dave & chromatic, will you please continue to put up with the (perhaps ignorant) points-of-view of myself and BrowserUK? Will you please not give up on us and the possibility of a better Perl 5 for everybody, even if not in the sense of a super-fast runtime I espouse? Will you please use your powers to guide us and help us avoid traps that are obvious to only you? PS - I really do think that the refactoring required for Perl5-on-LLVM will benefit the Perl core developers at the very least, even if we fall short of the blinding speed I hope to achieve. First, off: I am not going to discuss the issue further on perlmonks. The perl5-porters mailing list is the proper place to discuss improvements to the perl core, and where it's easiest to follow discussions and actually have a serious number of "core-capable" people follow the discussion. Second, I have no particular interest in this "perl on LLVM but not really" project, as I have not been convinced of its benefits. I might respond to the occasional question on p5p, but am not going to devote any significant amount of time to helping or mentoring people. My time is currently already fully taken up with trying to make perl better. Whether LLVM will benefit the Perl core developers is highly debatable. I think in the main it's just going to add another layer of complexity to an already terribly complex system. Dave	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 02, 2012 at 05:57 UTC
Dave, What can I post to P5P and not step on toes or be immediately flamed off the mailing list? (No sarcasm, totally serious question, I have no familiarity with that mailing list.) Thanks, ~ Will	[reply]
Re^3: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Sep 02, 2012 at 08:15 UTC
You can post anything related to the development of perl5. If you have a look at the list archives, you'll find that (in general) everyone is very polite and helpful. Dave.	[reply]
Re^4: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 03, 2012 at 00:31 UTC
Re^5: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 03, 2012 at 04:57 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by philiprbrenan (Monk) on Sep 01, 2012 at 18:24 UTC
Given: Java's wide spread use (3 billion plus devices according to Oracle) and gcc's capability of producing java bytecode from C; would porting Perl to the JVM make more sense than to LLVM?	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 02, 2012 at 06:03 UTC
Philip, Yes, a Java virtual machine is definitely a possibility for the backend. This would likely be part of a "non-guts" approach as (vaguely) outlined in my previous thread: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 5: A Vague Outline Emerges Thanks, ~ Will	[reply]
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 01, 2012 at 06:39 UTC
I send some good thoughts your way	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 01, 2012 at 06:57 UTC
How about sending along some Perl5-on-LLVM code as well? :)	[reply]
Re^3: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 01, 2012 at 07:03 UTC
How about sending along some Perl5-on-LLVM code as well? :) Sure, just send me some skills :)	[reply]
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by philiprbrenan (Monk) on Sep 01, 2012 at 11:39 UTC
Should that be: a Love Letter to daVe Mitchell ?	[reply]
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 04, 2012 at 02:01 UTC
No, you had better stay here. The P5P people would promptly rip your idea apart.	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 04, 2012 at 02:49 UTC
Anonymous Monk, So far both Nick Clark and Dave Mitchell have recommended cautiously engaging P5P. Can you please give me more information about why you think they will react negatively? Thanks, ~ Will	[reply]
Re^3: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by chromatic (Archbishop) on Sep 04, 2012 at 03:13 UTC
Please don't feed the trolls.	[reply]
Re^4: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Will_the_Chill (Pilgrim) on Sep 04, 2012 at 03:49 UTC
Re^3: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by patcat88 (Deacon) on Sep 04, 2012 at 05:17 UTC
You want to take away their control, Perl is whatever the interp folks says it is Larry's stack machine architecture never turned out any good, and they've been forced to live with it and defend it You are a for profit business trying to embrace extend and extinguish their Perl Many P5P who spent decades with the Perl source code do not want all their work and knowledge they learned to have been in vain C#, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Java have multiple compilers/interpreters, Perl does not, thats makes Perl special	[reply]
Re^4: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 04, 2012 at 07:20 UTC
Re: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Sep 05, 2012 at 18:30 UTC
Will, I think that what Dave (and I) are saying is more-or-less that “you’ve got this bee in your bonnet, and it’s not going to stop (and, neither are you ...) until it has run its course.” You are listening to those who agree with you, even effusing in praise(!) of those people, while seeking to pull those who foresee difficulties ahead of you into a debate that can only lead (in your eyes) to conversion to your point-of-view. Therefore ... enough talk. Go do it, all of you, if you can. One of two things will happen. Maybe you will succeed! But meanwhile, please don’t continue to pollute the Meditations section with this. You have assembled your team of raving fans. Go now, all of ye, and produce something ... if you can. Neither love-letters nor speculation will actually produce a compiler. Now, if you will please now cast your obligatory down-votes on this reply, as certain of you are wot to do with regard to virtually anything that I say, and get busy. “Time’s a wastin’ ...”
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Sep 05, 2012 at 18:50 UTC
what Dave (and I) are saying Dave and you eh. Ah well, that's it. No point in continuing then. please don�t continue to pollute the Meditations section with this. You dare to speak on behalf of all perlmonks. You who has polluted this place with endless reams of your recycled, homespun, out-of-the-ark, ribald tosh. As if. With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. RIP Neil Armstrong	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Sep 05, 2012 at 19:22 UTC
I am never going to tell anyone else on this forum or any other forum to “shut up.” Public forums exist to facilitate public discourse, and since I value extremely the discourse that is held here at PerlMonks, I shall never “respond in kind.” Now, run along, all of you, and start boning up on the byte-codes of your choice. There is indeed no better teacher than Experience, with the possible exception of Public Humiliation. Get busy turning Perl into Java, if you can. (Or will it be Python?) Build an optimizing compiler for a typeless language without strong typing. Being rude to other people in public places won’t get the job done. Nothing else matters but technical results. Damn the torpedoes. Either you will be Mr. Wright, or Mr. Langley, and very soon enough, only the winds will decide.
Re^3: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 05, 2012 at 21:08 UTC
Now, run along, all of you, I say dear fellow, do shut up	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 5 Optimizing Compiler, Part 6: A Love Letter To Dave Mitchell, chromatic, and BrowserUK by Anonymous Monk on Sep 05, 2012 at 18:59 UTC
But meanwhile, please don�t continue to pollute the Meditations section with this. I agree, take your own advice , you can do it, you can shut up	[reply]