    Announce: Rakudo Perl 6 compiler development release #49 ("SPb")

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm happy to announce the
February 2012 release of Rakudo Perl #49 "SPb". Rakudo is an 
implementation of Perl 6 on the Parrot Virtual Machine (see 
<http://www.parrot.org>). The tarball for this release
is available from <http://github.com/rakudo/rakudo/downloads>.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution[*] -- it's announcing a new release of the compiler only.
For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
<http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads>.

The Rakudo Perl compiler follows a monthly release cycle, with each
release named after a Perl Mongers group. The February 2012 release is
code named after the Saint Petersburg Perl Mongers, because Saint
Petersburg as a city has provided unmatched inspiration and clarity to
at least two Rakudo programmers.

Some of the specific changes and improvements occurring with this
release include:

* Regex syntax: <prior> and <Foo::Bar::baz>
* &rename and &copy functions
* LHS of infix:<xx> now thunks as per spec
* Improved backtraces
* Rat arithmetic falling back to Num when needed; FatRat
* Object hashes
* Int($x)-style coercions

We are still regressed on a few features compared to the 2011.07 release of
Rakudo, the most notable of which is autovivification. 
These regressions should be rectified in coming releases.

For a more detailed list of changes, see "docs/ChangeLog".

The development team thanks all of our contributors and sponsors for
making Rakudo Perl possible, as well as those people who worked on 
Parrot, the Perl 6 test suite and the specification.

The following people contributed to this release:

Moritz Lenz, Jonathan Worthington, Carl Masak, Tadeusz Sośnierz, kboga,
Will "Coke" Coleda, TimToady, lumi, not_gerd, PerlJam, not_gerd.

If you would like to contribute, see <http://rakudo.org/how-to-help>,
ask on the perl6-compiler@perl.org mailing list, or ask on IRC #perl6
on freenode.

The next release of Rakudo (#50) is scheduled for March 22, 2012. A
list of the other planned release dates and code names for 2012 is
available in the "docs/release_guide.pod" file. In general, Rakudo
development releases are scheduled to occur soon after each Parrot
monthly release. Parrot releases the third Tuesday of each month.

May a great deal of fun befall you!


[*] What's the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo
    Star distribution?  

    The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language.
    Nothing else.

    The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection
    of useful Perl 6 modules, the most recent incarnation of the "Using
    Perl 6" book, and other software that can be used with the Rakudo
    compiler to enhance its utility.  Rakudo Star is meant for early
    adopters who wish to explore what's possible with Rakudo Perl 6 and
    provide feedback on what works, what doesn't, and what else they
    would like to see included in the distribution.
