Parrot: For Real

Thanks to Pudge of Slashteam for pointing out that very early version of Parrot has been released. You may recall Parrot from The April Fool's joke - but it's coming to life.

Parrot-Script

[ksb]

I can almost feel someone contemplating a sever side module for apache using this as an embedded web page script.

Re:Parrot-Script

[ask]

heh. :-)

I started on making a mod_parrot so that you can run .pbc (parrot byte code) files through Apache. I got distracted though, so I didn't finish (yet).

- ask

This is just so wrong that it's bound to succeed.

[plover]

A language with the readability of Perl and the maintainability of Python. I hope they threw in the "significant filename" convention from Java while they were at it.

Yikes. I think I just described C#.

John

Re:This is just so wrong that it's bound to succee

[Zigg]

Wait a minute. I thought that Parrot (the package, not the April Fool's Joke) was supposed to be the common VM for Perl and Python, or at least that's what I gathered from the mailing list postings I read about it some time back.

The joke was about merging the syntax from the languages, but the real Parrot is about the VM. I think. :-) The details are really sketchy, and I don't have time to look at the code today (esp. since I'm on Solaris and I doubt it'd even compile).

Re:This is just so wrong that it's bound to succee

[tconnors]

Wait a minute. I thought that Parrot (the package, not the April Fool's Joke) was supposed to be the common VM for Perl and Python, or at least that's what I gathered from the mailing list postings I read about it some time back.

Good thing this is not the real language. Cause I just looked at the test?.pasm files, and thought for a second (despite the name *.?asm) "Hey! This looks like assembler. How the hell can this be a step forward!?" But it is just a VM, and indeed it is sort of assembler language, but this is not what the end programmer sees.

The joke was about merging the syntax from the languages, but the real Parrot is about the VM. I think. :-) The details are really sketchy, and I don't have time to look at the code today (esp. since I'm on Solaris and I doubt it'd even compile).

It's only perl - sure it should... "compile". Just did a quick runthrough myself....

TimC.

Not such a joke anymore.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

Looks like the roster is coming home to rest. I still think it is going to take a long time to get either side to convert or give and inch, but at least someone is pushing forward.

It will be interesting to see the beta scripts that get pumped out of this.

Re:Not such a joke anymore.

[dangermouse]

Looks like the roster is coming home to rest.

The roster [dictionary.com]? Are you quite sure? ;)

You mean, "the chickens are coming home to roost"? I hope not, because that expression doesn't really fit... it's more of a "reaping what you sow" sort of thing.

Re:I'm guessing...

[Evangelion]

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Re:I'm guessing...

[pudge]

Actually no.

The guy who orchestrated the April Fool's Joke is the pumpking for it. The idea of them working together was a pipe dream that influenced the joke.

Dead Parrot

[Root Down]

I am still not convinced that this Parrot would voom if you put 5000 volts through it.

Its a late parrot, it is no more

[lyberth]

The only reason it was standing before was because it had been nailed to the stick.

I emediatly thought of Monty Pythons parrot scetch.

Cracks me up just thinking about it. Its nice to think of something else for a while

Wha?

[Ignacio]

Why the hell would anyone want to clone Ruby?

well... not exactly

[__aahlyu4518]

Unlike the joke, it is not a combined language !!! It started as an idea as a 'shared bytecode/runtime environment that could be used by both Perl 6 and a future version of Python' [perl.org]
Right now it is a interpreter that does assembly to bytecode only [perl.org] for now as far as I can tell...

Re:well... not exactly

[rubicelli]

Please.

"Parrot" is the development name for the internals of Perl 6, notably the interpreter. See, e.g., this [perl.com] explanation. Any similarity to a certain April Fools joke is probably intentional, but isn't to be taken literally.

Re:well... not exactly

[__aahlyu4518]

That's right... Here's another link [perl.org]. It's called 'Perl 6 and Parrot Redux' (links from 2001/08/14, so not very new as well).

"Basically, the interpreter is going to be called Parrot and we're going to see whether or not we can actually make it run code from other languages"

So what I said... nothing like the joke.

Re:well... yes exactly

[ggoebel]

Simon Cozens, the Perl6 Pumpking, wrote that joke.

Re:well... not exactly

[seanw]

yah yah your comment is very beautiful and special. now stop being so damn excited or I'll mod you down to (-1, Noisy).

Re:well... not exactly

[Glytch]

You've got a sub-100k UID, you've never been moderated up, and you're not posting at -1?

Wow.

Who is behind Parrot?

[TheRealKennRoss]

Was this only inspired by the April fools joke, or was the 'joke' just a clever way of telling people something like that was in development but to confuse us, then surprise us?

In other words, is larry wall and the python guy collaborating efforts to bring us a new language derived from both? or is this some hackers bringing an actual product out of the joke.

Re:Who is behind Parrot?

[jekk]

It's likely to be the result of mis-use of Guido's time machine.

Re:Who is behind Parrot?

[Tikiman]

In other words, is larry wall and the python guy collaborating efforts to bring us a new language derived from both? or is this some hackers bringing an actual product out of the joke.

This is the real thing, see http://dev.perl.org/perl6/ [perl.org]

Re:Who is behind Parrot?

[ask]

See the who's who [perl.org] page and perl 6 status [perl.org].

you can also access the cvs repository [perl.org].

:-)

- ask

So which is this?

[BIGJIMSLATE]

Art imitating life, or life imitating art?

Re:you're assumptions were correct

[unformed]

shit, this was meant to be a reply to this [slashdot.org]

Re:you're assumptions were correct

[Syberghost]

but the problem is, three-dollar crack has very little to no effect on the human memory.

He probably just forgot that.

I wasn't expecting Parrot

[Ukab the Great]

Guido:I wasn't expecting Parrot...

Larry: Nobody expects Parrot! Our chief trait is laziness...laziness and impatience...impatience and laziness...Our two traits are laziness and impatience...and hubris...Our *three* main traits are laziness, impatience, and hubris...and a ridiculous habit of quoting JR Tolkien...Our *four*..no... *Amongst* our traits...are such elements as laziness, impatience...I'll come in again.

Link with comments

[PhilHibbs]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/28/174223 7&mode=thread [slashdot.org]

More links

[PhilHibbs]

ESR on encouraging the bytecode merge [python.org] ( http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-J uly/016406.html )

use.perl.org links [perl.org] ( http://use.perl.org/search.pl?topic=parrot )

Re:More links

[abde]

More generally, the fact remains that Perl's user/developer base is

still much larger than ours. Successful unification would co-opt a
lot of that energy for Python.

Unification? It reminds me of Vulcan and Romulus :)

100% compression

[tplayford]

When is someone going to implement that 100% data compression sysem I heard so much about around April time? I'm sure it would be very usefull! Just think about all the possibilities!

Re:100% compression

[ArsonSmith]

this already exists and has for a long time.

its called rm you can use it on your entire hard drive with the command
rm -rf /

Re:100% compression

[FreeMath]

LZIP [sourceforge.net] featured here [slashdot.org]. Offers the ability to compress files down to 0% of their original size.

What's the world coming to?

[quartz]

As a long time Perl zealot, I'd like to take this opportunity to vigorously protest this move. Posts on both Perl and Python mailing lists suggest that there *is* going to be some compromise at language syntax level to accomodate the common runtime. From the Perl perspective it's like "well, Perl 6 was going to be fully OO anyway, so what difference are going to make a few concession in syntax"? Well, I strongly object! I mean, I spent so much time learning Perl so I could be different and write cool obfuscated "Japh" sigs, and NOW they're going to make Perl look and feel just like every other C# on the planet? I've had it! If THAT's gonna get implemented, I vow to completely abandon my Monk robe and to only code in Visual Basic! Brother Monks, I urge you to join me in my protest so that the despicable traitor Larry Wall will see the error of his ways and will hopefully change his mind about this Frankensteinian abomination! United we will succeed!

:-)

core dumped

[itdlev]

$ ./test_prog t/test3.pbc

and i've got,

I reg 1 is 0
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Re:core dumped

[ask]

On FreeBSD I imagine?

Try the latest version from CVS, it should work now.

- ask

Someone didn't get the joke

[digital_freedom]

Parrot was an April Fools' gag.

This is what happens when jokes go bad. I hope the /. editors consider this carefully next April. Otherwise we might have a story about Bill Gates & Bill Joy collaborating to produce a new proprietary rock-solid server GUI.

Windows + Sun = Greenhouse

Sheesh... Then someone will implement it...

OMG! *wishes for mod points*

[Yam-Koo]

/. rarely makes me laugh, but that one was a great one. :) :)

Parrot is part of perl6

[Ars-Fartsica]

I believe this is the low-level "assembly language" of the proposed new perl VM.

Parrot for Palm

[iCharles]

There is Pippy, Python for Palm, and rumors of a Perl for Palm (both are supported on CE).

Perhaps, though, making a rock-solid Parrot-for-Palm would be a way to get a good implmentation of both languages for Palm. The developers could share with each other, and the OS-specific routines could be held in common (accessed via specific "header files" (modules, etc.)).

Hmmmmm....

April fools becoming real?

[Ed Avis]

I believe there was an April Fool's joke many years ago about a 16-bit version of the ARM processor called THUMB. But then only a relatively short time later ARM Ltd announced they were indeed working on a 16-bit frontend to the ARM (basically a new instruction decoder), and now the 'Thumb instruction decoder' is a standard part of many ARM family CPUs.

How many other things started out as an April Fool's day joke and then actually got implemented?

Re:April fools becoming real?

[mmontour]

How many other things started out as an April Fool's day joke and then actually got implemented?

Well, the classic example has to be RFC1149 [ietf.org], A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers [linux.no]

... other... April Fool's day joke... implemented?

[ediron2]

I can name one that never hit reality, even if I can't remember all the details of where/when I saw it. Late 70's, I came across an chip spec sheet for a WOM (WRITE ONLY MEMORY... think about it).

Going out to google, a page or so down on this link [ariplex.com] resembles the chip sheet as I remember it. I'd have sworn I saw it in a mag and don't recall ever reading "Electronic Design".

Re:... other... April Fool's day joke... implement

[ScoLgo]

The one part of the spec that apparently has been implemented...

SPECIAL FEATURES
Because of the employment of the Signetics' proprietary Sanderson-Rabbet Channel the 25120 will provide 50% higher speed than you will obtain.

Re:April fools becoming real?

[armb]

> How many other things started out as an April Fool's day joke and then actually got implemented?

BWM tyre pressure sensors.

I heard of this...

[qute]

I think he called it Ruby.
The power of perl, without the inconsistency of perl. And shorter source code(from the great language shootout)

Computer folks just don't understand 1st April...

[John Allsup]

First we had TCP/IP over carrier pigeon (suggested
in an April fool's RFC). Now this... What next?

Re:Oh just great

[connorbd]

Okay, CMU-CL... and then someone writes a Dylan front end for it.

Eh, religious wars... Lisp is a good language, no doubt. It's one of the two or three oldest still in current use (does it in fact predate both Fortran and Cobol?), but all those parens...

/Brian

history of language

[rp]

The first FORTRAN compiler was written in 1954-57.
The first Lisp interpreter was written in 1958-59.
COBOL was started in 1959; the first specification was issued April, 1960 and it takes me more than 2 minutes to find whether a working implementation existed at the time, so you can do it yourself.

Re:history of language

[connorbd]

I had actually heard Lisp was the oldest, but thanks...

/Brian

Err ... what about Python /Perl implementations ?

[makapuf]

Sorry, but what's the difference between this and a random bytecode/assembly language ? What's the point if neither Python nor Perl implementation are alpha'ed, too ?
I mean, how could we know if this is adequate for a python bytecode for example ?
Why not use an existing (Scheme/Lisp/Java) bytecode then ?
Besides, I'd be very happy if we could have a somewhat open, Free, standard bytecode. But why (I know there's a because) can't we use something existing ?

Re:Err ... what about Python /Perl implementations

[ask]

At least the Java byte code is very specific to Java; it doesn't map well into other languages and specifically not well into dynamically typed languages like Perl and Python.

In CVS there's already a mini language (Jako) that can be compiled into Parrot assembler code.

- ask

dead?

[John Macdonald]

It's not dead yet. In fact, it's only just barely alive - so it's still barely capable of trying to gum you to death or to bleed all over you.

All I can say, is...

[si1k]

Some people just can't take a joke.

Yeah right

[maxxon]

Just because someone started working on something intending to be a joke doesn't mean it's not a joke and that anything will come of it.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Visual Seasick

[Magus311X]

Something to develop for Windows CeMeNT? ;)

-----

Jokes on them

[Da Penguin]

I forgot what day it was. They laughed at me for believing in Parrot. They called me mad, but WHO'S MAD NOW?!?!??! MWAHAHAHAHA

Parrot? Bah!

[beholder77]

I was hoping one of the other April fools jokes would have come true: Slashdot on FreeBSD 5.0

Hmm... I guess that would mean FreeBSD 5.0 would need to be released :)

Yes, Parrot. But not that parrot.

[smallpaul]

It is the intent of the Perl 6 folks that Perl 6's VM be usable as an engine for interpreting multiple languages. This was always their intent. In order to make that wish a little more public they've decided to call their VM "parrot" (after the April fools joke). But at this point nobody has seriously looked at porting Python to parrot because it is not very mature yet. Furthermore, many Python people are skeptical that Perl 6 will live up to its long feature set so nobody is putting eggs in that basket yet.

There is no sense in which the languages will be merged. If moving to Parrot required a substantial change in Python it just wouldn't happen. If Python on Parrot was less efficient than the current Python interpreter, that would also be a major issue.

Re:Here is what Parrot is ?

[ask]

Parrot overview.pod [perl.org] would be a better link. :-)

- ask (cvs.perl.org maintainer).