| HN Mirror

I didn't say Larry wasn't keen on a multi-language VM in 2003.[1] I said that Parrot's pursuit of that goal contributed to (an intricately braided series of) technical and political conflicts with Rakudo, culminating in a breakdown of relations between them across 2013-2015.

Why would I think that? I am aware of your recollections. I have read everything you blogged about the collapse of Parrot.

I have also read everything several other people wrote about the inception of MoarVM and the suspension of Parrot support, including key figures from both sides and several third-party observers. I have read the IRC logs of Parrot design meetings, including negotiations with the Rakudo leads, for the period leading up to the rupture. I have read key announcements by Parrot and Rakudo lead designers from earlier than this, wherein I think I see the seeds of the breakdown sown.

I made a detailed study of all this last spring, when I learned about the suspension. I have also been checking in intermittently on Parrot since 2002, and on every Perl 6 implementation I could find since the post-Pugs revival. And since last spring I have been kept aware of your position in particular through sundry comments here and on Reddit; you are a reliable presence whenever someone mentions Perl 6 or Rakudo without condemning it.

I can't speak to specific differences between my opinions and your recollections, since you did not see fit to say what those were. But I am hardly uninformed and I know of no error in what I said (viz., the actual words that I typed).

[1] If I wanted a document to make my point for me, I could hardly do better than the 2003 State of the Onion. Here's where Larry's head was in 2003: Yes, he thought a multi-language VM was just what Perl needed. He also thought that the Perl 6 design was basically done. He clearly didn't think there would be too much difference in kind between Parrot and the p5p runtime, as shown by his speculating that Ponie could be ready to support 5.10 and could entirely replace p5p by 5.12. He had not yet written the Apocalypse on the object system; its release in 2004 is really when it became clear how deep and structural the changes from 5 to 6 would be, and consequently it's also when it really became clear what a VM would need to provide to be good for Perl 6. Heck, in 2003 Larry thought "slow progress" meant a couple of major redesign documents a year, and he thought slow progress was just coming to an end. About the only thing that address was right about is that Larry didn't know very much. (Well, that and the switch statement.) If I'm saying reality disproved early conceptions about the realization of Perl 6, SotO 2003 is Exhibit A.