Ben Davies has published a module that may well change ad-hoc debugging in Raku: Trait::Traced. It introduces the is traced trait that can currently be attached to any type (class), or to any subroutine or method. So, to find out anything that is happening while executing code in your class Foo, simply do use Trait::Traced and change class Foo { to class Foo is traced {. Yours truly feels this could become a core module rather sooner than later!

FOSDEM 2020

Want your name in lights? Or at least the 2020 "Introduction to #rakulang" pamphlet? We're going to press in a few days, and I'm the one doing the rewriting, so DM me if you've got #rakulang content that you want publicised!

— DrForr (@DrForr) January 20, 2020

And if you would like to participate in taking care of the booth at FOSDEM, then that is still also possible! You’d be sure to get some of the brand new stickers!

TPaRCiH 2020

The third newsletter of the Perl and Raku conference in Houston has been published. If you have an idea for a Raku presentation to give there, then this is the place to go.

Renaming Progress

A nod to Raku

Mark Carter has written another blog post that refers to Raku: A recursive descent parser in #forthlang (and a nod to #rakulang) (with some interesting comments by Ralph Mellor).

Inspired by YAPC::Kyoto

Yusukebe was inspired by the presentations at YAPC::Kyoto and wrote an extensive blog about writing programs in Raku (/r/programming_jp comments).

Weekly Challenge

Laurent Rosenfeld published their review of Challenge #42. And here are the Raku entries for Challenge #43:

• Olympic Rings and Self-Descripting Numbers by Laurent Rosenfeld.
• Olympic Numbers with Raku by Arne Sommer.
• Weekly Challenge #43 by Javier Luque
• Olympic Rings and Self-descriptive Numbers by Ryan C. Thompson.

Challenge #44 is up for your perusal!

Core Developments

• Daniel Green has worked on using a newer version of the libtommath library and worked on the implementation of nqp::expmod_I (the actual workhorse of the Int.expmod method).
• Elizabeth Mattijsen added a number of Supply methods: split, comb, encode, decode, first, collate, repeated. They also implemented a BUILDPLAN helper library. And added an is built Attribute trait that controls whether an attribute can be set with .new and whether an attribute should be bound rather than assigned (is built(:bind)).
• Ben Davies fixed several Parameter introspection issues.
• Stefan Seifert fixed a file handle leak with loading modules.
• Nick Logan fixed a problem with the names of repositories on Windows.
• And many smaller fixes and improvements.

Questions about Raku

• Slip documentation bug ??? by jakar.
• Strange behaviour of eager takeby Holli.
• How compare set of set? by chia yi hung.
• How do you use file system sockets? by mr_clicky_keys.
• How do you generate random token by Hermes.
• How to use matching delimiters by hsmyers.
• gunzip on the fly by perlcurt.
• About Laziness by jakar.
• Calculating the e number Lars Malmsteen.
• Getting the first 10-digit prime number using lazy lists by Lars Malmsteen.
• Why Raku crashes with ‘Abort trap: 6’ while using Cro on a MacOS Catalina? by Mikhail Khorkov.

Meanwhile on Twitter

• Death Marches by Anarcho réformé patarchiste.
• Maybe a good idea by Michel Majchrzak.
• 5 or 6 by tuxedo catte.
• Very fine language by Dr. Roy Schestowitz (罗伊).
• The something touch by Herbert Bollermann.
• The –track option by Joelle Maslak.
• printf by Paul Evans.
• Just the start! by Ben Davies.
• Last year by Andrew Shitov.
• Test your modules by Alexey Melezhik.
• Weird by Martin Hořeňovský.
• Learning gradually by Simon Proctor.
• High traffic and high touch by Jeff Goff.
• Is it ok? by めもりー🐱🐹.
• Exceptional compiler builders by Brad Gilbert.
• Didn’t know by 小達＠カザオキラボ.
• Kind of data in what kind of variable by Julie 🏳️‍🌈 Montoya 🕷️.
• Parse a valid number by Marc Chantreux.
• HotBot by Elizabeth Mattijsen.
• Test against various Rakudos by Alexey Melezhik.
• Good odds by J.E. Turcotte.
• Shrunken Image by JJ Merelo.
• Trying to rebrand by Victor (vitaut) Zverovich.
• Enjoy reading by Samuel Chase.
• Now a pointer by Jeff Goff.
• Twisted and crushed by うさぎ.
• Functional fun by Simon Proctor.
• Different versions by Suman Khanal🇳🇵.
• Like it by うさぎ.

Meanwhile on Facebook

If you’re interested in developments there, go to the Perl 6 group homepage.

Meanwhile on perl6-users

• Fw: [perl-foundation-outreach] Application open by Patrick Spek.
• Raku Module Maintenance by Rod Taylor.
• Using raku as unix “cat”…. by William Michels.
• my keeper on operators by Tony Ewell.
• Creating a doc PR by Tom Browder.

Comments about Raku

• Cute tricks by zokier.
• Opinion of Raku? by cosmojg.
• Completely abandoning by reggieband.
• On Raku roles by Ralph Mellor.
• A Parallel by simias.
• Totally different by peatmoss.
• The fate of MIR by scythe.

New Raku Modules

• Trait::Traced by Ben Davies.
• Sys::Domainname by Joelle Maslak.
• JSON::Pretty::Sorted, Math::SelfDescriptiveNumbers, Color::Scheme by Holli Holzer.
• Pod::To::Anything, Pod::To::HTML::Section, Grammar::TodoTxt, App::GTD by Patrick Spek.

Updated Raku Modules

• ScaleVec by Sam Gillespie.
• Date::Names by Tom Browder.
• Net::BGP, TCP::LowLevel, DateTime::Monotonic, App::Tasks, IP::Random by Joelle Maslak.
• JSON::Infer, XML::Class by Jonathan Stowe.
• Gnome:N, Gnome::GObject by Marcel Timmerman.

Winding down

It was a busy week for yours truly: plenty of new stuff in Raku. But others have been very busy as well, judging by the number of new modules and module updates!

Meanwhile Alexander Kiryuhin is putting the final touches on the 2020.01 Rakudo compiler release. Which means that next week, there’ll be a lot of news about new releases of the Raku Programming Language! See you then!