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I've used Parrot as a target for a language implementation. It supports a lot of stuff out of the box (even multimethods!) and it's quite easy to get started. I
by stefano 16y ago
I've used Parrot as a target for a language implementation. It supports a lot of stuff out of the box (even multimethods!) and it's quite easy to get started. It also provides tools to help you build a compiler, like a parser generator integrated with the rest of the system. The problem is that right now it is quite slow, slower than Perl or Python, and a bit buggy. It would be an ideal target platform for dynamic languages otherwise. I wouldn't use it for something needed in production at the moment.
- WalterGR 16y ago> a bit buggy Anything off the top of your head that you've been bit by?
- stefano 16y agoThreading just doesn't work (it's going to be rewritten from scratch). Sometimes there are segfaults within managed code and sometimes there are memory leaks. Sometimes an assertion in the VM fails, causing the program to halt with a stack trace. A few releases ago the compiler of Parrot's assembly language reported wrong line numbers in error messages, but this has been fixed.
- WalterGR 16y agoAll those "sometimes" seems to suggest that Parrot is much more than a bit buggy. A memory leak is one thing, but segfaults and assertion failures... Down to brass tacks: is this thing usable in its current state?
- stefano 16y ago> Down to brass tacks: is this thing usable in its current state? Experimentation and quick and dirty prototypes? Yes. Production code? No.