Patrick Spek has announced the release of the Rakudo Star 2021.02.1 package (based on the 2021.02.1 Rakudo Compiler release). This is the first time this has happened using a Github Action workflow. Binary releases are not yet available: like everything in the Raku Programming Language, it is the work of volunteers. To create MacOS and Windows installable packages, a volunteer is needed to create the Github Actions workflow for MacOS and/or Windows! The advantage being that this way, you would only need to do this once instead of for each release! So please, stand up if you have the know-how and time to do it!

February Grant Report

Jonathan Worthington has published their February Grant Report for the RakuAST Grant (/r/rakulang comments).

Thread safe caching

Simon Proctor blogged about a thread safe caching algorithm in the Raku Programming Language, which resulted in quite a discussion on the pros and cons of the various approaches in /r/rakulang.

Through the cracks

It appears yours truly missed the announcement of an interesting application written in Raku last August: Hubtodate by demostanis (/r/rakulang comments). Kudos and apologies to demostanis.

Weeklies

Weekly Challenge #103 is available for your perusal. Mohammad S Anwar also published a Monthly Report.

Pull Requests

• Standardize documentation search categories
• Give NQPParametricRoleHOW a role_typecheck_list method
• Use faster while nqp::elems(@) vs while @
• Optimize truth checks of arrays in whiles and ifs (NQP)
• Add support for userspace encodings in Blob.decode
• Make .keys / values / kv / pairs / antipairs / invert work on Enums
• Optimize truth checks of arrays in whiles and ifs (Rakudo)

Please check them out and leave any comments that you may have!

Core Developments

• Ben Davies reworked basic socket handling in MoarVM (which will percolate to NQP and Rakudo in the coming weeks), improved serialization of C types in MoarVM and fixed problems with the JavaScript backend script runner.
• Leon Timmermans added a Callable parameter to Lock.wait to indicate when it should stop waiting, and made sure the setting uses that where possible (which should reduce the number of locks taken considerably in some situations).
• Elizabeth Mattijsen made sorting upto 2x as fast by working around an issue of boolification of enums, and made nodemap / deepmap about 2x as fast (which affects >>. hypering in a similar way).
• Daniel Sockwell made cmp on Nums about 2x as fast.
• And some other fixes and improvements to internal documentation.
• Plus some work on the RakuAST branch by Jonathan Worthington and Elizabeth Mattijsen.

Questions about Raku

• Unable to use Sigilless variables with WHERE clause in CLASS? by chenyf.
• My Raku code is segfaulting by Julia.
• What’s your setup for writing Raku code? (repl, editor, etc) by Daniel Sockwell.
• Is there a code formatter for Raku? by cherry_professional.
• How to modify code say $?PACKAGE to print the fully qualified package name by rahogaboom.
• Is there a way to combine map and if? by Julia.
• Strings and Strands in MoarVM by Daniel Sockwell.
• Raku slow Mixes sorting by Anton Antonov.
• How to compile a shared library on Windows such that it can be used with NativeCall? by Håkon Hægland.
• Raku vs. JavaScript vs. PHP vs. Python – Which scripting language should I continue to learn? by ItchyPlant.
• Actually CATCHing exceptions without creating GOTO byDaniel Sockwell.
• Where should Raku live in this diagram? by Elizabeth Mattijsen.

Meanwhile on Twitter

• Docker image for 2021.02.1 is out by JJ Merelo.
• Synced with the latest Rakudo release by JJ Merelo.
• Examples in Nim and Raku by JJ Merelo.
• Some comments by yours truly by Elizabeth Mattijsen.
• Not expected to be doing that at work by Jonathan Stowe.
• A little late by Mohammad S Anwar.
• Deployed in production by Jonathan Stowe.
• An alternate command line argument parser by Elizabeth Mattijsen.
• Racking my brains for days by Jonathan Stowe.
• Imagining the ideal language by Juan.
• Will Raku have OpenGL bindings? by Jack Merlot.
• Ducktyping into real type constraints by Jonathan Stowe.

Meanwhile on the mailing list

• CALL-ME Math problem? by ToddAndMargo.
• Alternative view of Raku Documentation by Richard Hainsworth.
• Module Documentation by Richard Hainsworth.
• A problem case for the site documentation search: the ^methods method. by Joseph Brenner.
• Documentation of internals by Joseph Brenner.
• Find Packages with prefix … by Paul Procacci.

Comments about Raku

• Thanks for the shoutout! by Daniel Sockwell.
• It’d be Raku! by theamk.
• An advert that really isn’t by dash2.
• Incorrect premise by glacambre.
• Inspired by linguistics by higerordermap.

New Raku Modules

• Curlie by Brian Duggan.
• Collection-Raku-Documentation by Richard Hainsworth.

Updated Raku Modules

• octans by Andinus.
• Trait::Traced by Ben Davies.
• Terminal::UI, Terminal::ANSI by Brian Duggan.
• LibCurl by Curt Tilmes.
• Pakku::RecMan::Client, Pakku::Meta, Pakku::Spec, Pakku::RecMan by Haytham Elganiny.
• Gnome::N, Gnome::Gio, Gnome::Gtk3, Gnome::GObject, Gnome::Gtk3 by Marcel Timmerman.
• Raku::Pod::Render, Collection by Richard Hainsworth.
• Prometheus::Client by Sterling Hanenkamp.
• System::Query, fez by Tony O’Dell.

Winding down

A week with some significant speedups for some types of workflow in the Raku Programming Language! Hopefully, this was another Rakudo Weekly News with plenty to read and think about. See you next week for another instalment!