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Parrot's biggest issue is that they don't have a First-among-equals language that they can do better than anyone else. JVM has Java, CLR has C#, even Perl 6 has

Parrot's biggest issue is that they don't have a First-among-equals language that they can do better than anyone else. JVM has Java, CLR has C#, even Perl 6 has moved to PUGS. I commend the Parrot team for the amazing effort they've been showing, but I'd liken this to Duke Nukem Forever finally settling on a Physics Engine...

jrockway 18y ago
Perl 6 hasn't moved to Pugs. Although anything that passes the Perl 6 test suite is Perl 6, the "real" Perl 6 is Rakudo, which runs on Parrot. Pugs was really just a prototype. Read the source code some time, and you'll see why.
johnm 18y ago
What language do you think would be best for them/someone to move to Parrot as their base platform? Given Parrot's very dynamic nature, a dynamic language seems like a good idea. Io would be quite interesting but it's too esoteric at this point so perhaps a more popular prototype-based language like JavaScript? What about dumping the old, crappy C-based implementation of Ruby for Parrot?
- draegtun 18y ago
  There is already an implementation of Ruby on Parrot called "Cardinal". Don't know its status but it can now be found in GitHub http://github.com/cardinal http://github.com/cardinal There is also a Python implementation called "Pynie" http://code.google.com/p/pynie/ http://code.google.com/p/pynie/ List of language developments are kept on the wiki at https://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/Languages https://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/Languages. If language developers get behind Parrot it could become a very interesting alternative to JVM & .Net
  - jballanc 18y ago
    Last I checked Cardinal was dead... and even if not, is it 1.9 compatible?
    - tene 18y ago
      I haven't worked on Cardinal in ages, besides moving it to an independent repository recently and updating it to actually build on its own last night. The grammar is fairly complete, but the standard library isn't there, several builtin classes are missing completely, or don't have all their methods filled out, etc. I was targeting 1.9, yes. The big problem is that I don't actually know or really like ruby. That's the main reason I stopped working on it. I'd love to see someone else take up work on it. I'd be glad to give commit privs on the repo to anyone, and I'd love to help anyone get up to speed in working on it.
      - whatusername 18y ago
        One of the things I love about HN.. You ask a question like that - and out of nowhere - the author of the code responds.
- jballanc 18y ago
  Actually, JavaScript would be kind of interesting as a First-among-equals language. The more I work with JS, the more I get the feeling that it's a wonderful language crippled by a tragic standard library and a horrible run time.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    JavaScript has some great runtimes; V8 and Tracemonkey are very fast. The standard library is also fine, you probably only dislike the W3C DOM. Pretty much everyone agrees that that is one of the worst APIs ever designed, and that's why it's been replaced (or rather, hidden) by things like jQuery.
tene 18y ago
Perl 6 hasn't moved to Pugs. Pugs was an experimental prototype that was already abandoned by the time work started on Rakudo (Perl 6 on Parrot).
- jballanc 18y ago
  Thanks for the update... it's been a good 6 months or so since I last checked on Perl 6's progress...

jrockway 18y ago

Perl 6 hasn't moved to Pugs. Although anything that passes the Perl 6 test suite is Perl 6, the "real" Perl 6 is Rakudo, which runs on Parrot. Pugs was really just a prototype. Read the source code some time, and you'll see why.

johnm 18y ago

What language do you think would be best for them/someone to move to Parrot as their base platform? Given Parrot's very dynamic nature, a dynamic language seems like a good idea. Io would be quite interesting but it's too esoteric at this point so perhaps a more popular prototype-based language like JavaScript? What about dumping the old, crappy C-based implementation of Ruby for Parrot?

draegtun 18y ago
There is already an implementation of Ruby on Parrot called "Cardinal". Don't know its status but it can now be found in GitHub http://github.com/cardinal http://github.com/cardinal There is also a Python implementation called "Pynie" http://code.google.com/p/pynie/ http://code.google.com/p/pynie/ List of language developments are kept on the wiki at https://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/Languages https://trac.parrot.org/parrot/wiki/Languages. If language developers get behind Parrot it could become a very interesting alternative to JVM & .Net
- jballanc 18y ago
  Last I checked Cardinal was dead... and even if not, is it 1.9 compatible?
  - tene 18y ago
    I haven't worked on Cardinal in ages, besides moving it to an independent repository recently and updating it to actually build on its own last night. The grammar is fairly complete, but the standard library isn't there, several builtin classes are missing completely, or don't have all their methods filled out, etc. I was targeting 1.9, yes. The big problem is that I don't actually know or really like ruby. That's the main reason I stopped working on it. I'd love to see someone else take up work on it. I'd be glad to give commit privs on the repo to anyone, and I'd love to help anyone get up to speed in working on it.
    - whatusername 18y ago
      One of the things I love about HN.. You ask a question like that - and out of nowhere - the author of the code responds.
jballanc 18y ago
Actually, JavaScript would be kind of interesting as a First-among-equals language. The more I work with JS, the more I get the feeling that it's a wonderful language crippled by a tragic standard library and a horrible run time.
- jrockway 18y ago
  JavaScript has some great runtimes; V8 and Tracemonkey are very fast. The standard library is also fine, you probably only dislike the W3C DOM. Pretty much everyone agrees that that is one of the worst APIs ever designed, and that's why it's been replaced (or rather, hidden) by things like jQuery.

tene 18y ago

Perl 6 hasn't moved to Pugs. Pugs was an experimental prototype that was already abandoned by the time work started on Rakudo (Perl 6 on Parrot).

jballanc 18y ago
Thanks for the update... it's been a good 6 months or so since I last checked on Perl 6's progress...