This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Perl Buzz by Andy Lester. Original Post: I'm glad to hear "Rakudo is slow!" Feed Title: Perlbuzz Feed URL: http://perlbuzz.com/atom.xml Feed Description: What's happening in the world of Perl programming, including Perl 5, Perl 6, the CPAN and Parrot? Latest Perl Buzz Posts Latest Perl Buzz Posts by Andy Lester Latest Posts From Perlbuzz

I'm pretty tired of the sniping and punditry about the recent release of Rakudo Star. However, David Golden has put together a great article about what the Rakudo Star release means both to the team and to the public.

Key points from his article:

• Rakudo Star is the first prototype of an end-user distribution tarball
• There is no way reactions to Rakudo Star can possibly live up to the hopes and dreams of those involved the project (and I say that it can't live up to the expectations of those outside the project, either)
• Rakudo Star still is a significant step forward for Perl 6
• If anyone was waiting for Perl 6 to rescue Perl, then they'll need to keep waiting.

And then, down in the comments, Moritz Lenz points out something I'd overlooked:

Yes, people now say "Rakudo is slow as $funny_metaphor", but that's much better than "Rakudo is vapourware". Once we speed up Rakudo, we can simply post benchmarks and say "look, it's now $n times faster than before". "Rakudo is slow" implies "Rakudo is", and that's a big step forward.

Thanks for the reminder, Moritz. Next it will be "Rakudo is faster, but not fast enough." And then maybe "Rakudo doesn't have enough documentation," and then "Rakudo doesn't have all the modules it should." All of it is progress.