    Announce: Rakudo Perl 6 compiler development release #60 ("Sonoma")

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm proud to announce the
January 2013 release of Rakudo Perl #60 "Sonoma". 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://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/>.

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://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>.

The Rakudo Perl compiler follows a monthly release cycle, with each release
named after a Perl Mongers group. The January 2013 release is code-named
after Sonoma.pm, home of Geoff Broadwell (japhb), whose contributions to
Rakudo and the Perl 6 ecosystem during 2012/2013 have been significant.

Some of the changes in this release are outlined below:

+ sink context; for-loops are now lazy by default
+ first mentioning a variable from outer scope and then redeclaring it
  in the same scope (my $a; { $a; my $a }) is now an error.
+ the long-deprecated "SAFE" setting has been removed
+ 'require' now works with indirect module names
+ restored socket read semantics to returning the requested number of bytes
+ $obj.Some::Role::meth() now passes the correct $obj
+ try/CATCH now returns Nil when the CATCH is triggered, rather than the
  exception; this brings it in line with try without a CATCH
+ whatever-star cases of splice now implemented
+ sequences with Junction endpoints now work
+ corrected precedence of various set operators
+ fixed binding of non-Any things into hashes and arrays
+ can now import multis with the same name from different modules,
  provided all dispatchers are onlystar

This is only a small subset of the changes in this release. For a more
detailed list, 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:

Jonathan Worthington, Moritz Lenz, Carl Masak, Tobias Leich, Shrivatsan 
Sampathkumar

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 (#61), is scheduled for February 21, 2013. 
A list of the other planned release dates and code names for future releases 
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.

On behalf of the development team, I encourage you to try the new release,
to live life to its fullest, to cherish each moment, and to have fun.
(And, have a good laugh at conspiracy theorists for their doomed end-of-world predictions!)

[*] 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.
