I submitted this story few minutes ago and it got instantly rejected, so let me repost it here in my journal:

Perl.com (part of O'Reilly Network) has posted an interview with Autrijus Tang, A Plan for Pugs, The Perl 6 Implementation No One Expected, about his announcement to implement Perl 6 in Haskell, a purely functional, statically typed, lazy programming language, which suprisingly to both Perl and Haskell communities turned out to not be a joke. In the interview with chromatic, Autrijus Tang thoroughly explains the rationale behing his new project Pugs, talking about his experience with Perl, CPAN and Parrot, and his relatively recent adventure with Haskell. He explains how Parsec, a monadic parser combinator library for Haskell, can be useful in implementing Perl 6 rules, how a static type system can be used to implement Perl 6's optional type system, providing many interesting links and important insight in the process. Together with Ponie and Pirate, the Pugs project seems to have a potential to become one of the most important projects for the unprecedented interlingual interoperability of future Parrot-based language implementations. For a better introduction to Pugs project, see Pugs Apocryphon 1.

I have already described many strange moderations in the past, I have posted results of my research, but I haven't seen anything like this ever before.

I noticed that something strange is happening when I saw that my last comment (Exactly posted to Digital Life and Evolution) was moderated Overrated. This was (and still is) the only moderation of that post. It was originally posted with Karma bonus, so it was Score:2. As you can see it is actually an excellent comment. If you read the story with Threshold=5 and then my comment you will see that it contains a lot of crucial informations not included in the story or any other comment. I am actually ashamed that I have spend so much time and energy on writing such an interesting and informative, honest post on Slashdot.

I can understand that my previous comment in that story, Tierra (that was moderated as +1, Interesting Insightful Troll) can be read as a Flamebait (if I understand that word correctly) as the follow-up discussion seems to demonstrate, but the second post, the last one that I posted to date, is quite frankly the best one I posted during the last months, if not ever. When I was posting it I thought that it's a pity that it is a late post so it won't get moderated up for everyone interested to read, but it had never occurred to me that it might be possibly moderated down, as Overrated or for any other reason (thought the Overrated moderation escapes the metamoderation process so it is not surprising if it was a conscious unfair moderation). Posting any other comment (except the obvious +5, Funny ones) I was expecting to get some negative moderation, but not in the case of this one. In fact, I will quote it here:

Sounds like Tierra from the early 1990s

Just what I thought. Next thought was man these people are clueless, how can such great software experiments have been forgotten?

Exactly my first impression. I thought that this research must be not interesting at all because there is no reference to Tierra, but fortunately I was proved wrong. It turns out that the only people who are ignorant of Tierra are the story submitter, editor and the author of the linked article. As soon as you find the website of this project (not directly linked in the story) and click the first link called Introduction and Background you will read five paragraphs about the Tierra project as well as information about even earlier research based on Core Wars called Core World, in the section History of digital life, which I will take the liberty to quote here:

[quote removed, see the original]

Read the entire article. After finding and reading that and other texts on the Avida Digital Life Platform and the MSU Digital Evolution Laboratory websites, I came to the conclusion that contrary to the impression one has after reading the Slashdot story, this is an amazing project with fantastic team and decades of fascinating scientific research behing it, all wonderfully explained and thoroughly referenced.

I came to that conclusion only because I bothered to search more informations than only those directly linked in this story, and only then I decided to download the Avida software. A quick look at the CVS respository shows signs of development after the release of the latest packaged version in 2003 but I decided to try the tarball first. It compiled cleanly on my Debian Woody box, but it took a lot of time. If you see that the quick flow of the compiler messages suddenly stop and freeze for half an hour, don't think it halted, just be patient.

I had no time to run it yet (the binary doesn't seem to be called "avida" so I have to read the documentation first) but I look forward to experiment with this amazing project. It certainly makes more sense to waste my cycles on Tierra or Avida than on SETI. Why look for life when you can evolve some of your own?

Which leads to an idea: if there will ever be an initiative to run a distributed version of Avida, I'm in. Just imagine how unimaginably complex creatures might evolve after few years of a distributed simulation using hundreds of thousands of computers! And this is a perfect prooject for parallelisation: every one would have her own population on her computer, even if off-line, and from time to time the computer would connect with the central server to exchange some of the organisms. It would be perfect because (1) it doesn't matter how often do you connect with the main server, or how many generation you can process, or how large is your population, so there are no networking issues, and (2) it doesn't matter if you cheat or try to disrupt the project because the server would only exchange valid chromosomes and if they were not good they would die rather quickly on the computers that don't cheat. Everyone even could have slighltly different mortality and other factor which would mean that different species would be best suited.

Furthermore, even if you wanted to introduce an "intelligent design" to the evolutionary process by cheating, creating an instance of "guided evolution" in your own population, it would still have to compete with substantially larger population of naturally selected species and even if you managed to introduce malicious agents into the global population, it would force the rest of the species to adapt to this new situation. This would be really fascinating. I'll try the software as soon as I have some time and then search whether there are any plans to develop a distributed network based on Avida.

When I saw this post moderated as Overrated, I knew that something strange was just happening. And today I saw the Comment Moderation summary for that period. Please keep in mind that I posted only two comments on Monday and nothing later, and this is a summary posted on Wednesday:

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on 1:05 Wednesday 16 February 2005

1. MySQL vs PostgreSQL , posted to Comparing MySQL Performance , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Informative (4).
2. Cool Processors , posted to Cooling Down Hot Processors , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Insightful (4).
3. Amazing , posted to 2004's Most Creative Games , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Funny (4).
4. We don't need more "power" , posted to The Quest for More Processing Power , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (4).
5. Tetris is great , posted to Tetris DS - First Nintendo DS Homebrew Game , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
6. Frightening , posted to U.S. Denies Patent on Part-Human Hybrid , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Flamebait (0).
7. Exactly , posted to Digital Life and Evolution , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Normal (0).
8. Serious problems with Apple , posted to Napster To Campaign Aggressively Against iPod , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Normal (0).
9. Good news? , posted to Cisco Evolving Into A Security Company , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
10. Tierra , posted to Digital Life and Evolution , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).
11. Just as secure as any other , posted to How Secure Is Microsoft's Fingerprint Reader? , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Informative (3).
12. Hard to remember? , posted to Password Security Panned , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Informative (3).
13. Reassuring , posted to EU Software Patents Dead Again , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Informative (3).
14. Bad license , posted to Open-Source Technique for GM Crops , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (4).
15. Solution , posted to Scientists Find Flaw in Quantum Dot Construction , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Funny (3).
16. Solution , posted to Scientists Find Flaw in Quantum Dot Construction , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Funny (2).
17. MySQL vs PostgreSQL , posted to Comparing MySQL Performance , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Informative (3).

(Please remember to add one point to all of the final scores of comments that are not already capped at Score:5 and were posted with Karma bonus)

Summary:

Positive moderations: 0
Negative moderations: 17
Undone moderations: 0
Total: 17 Karma fluctuations
Final result: -17

Moderation spectrum:

-12, Overrated
-5, Troll

That's right. Those were seventeen negative moderations and no single positive one, all in one day, in a period when I didn't post anything. Those are mostly old posts, many of them were Score:5 before this modbombing incident.

To fully understand how far this moderation deviates from the usual, you have to compare it with the summary of the moderation done during the last 30 days:

Comment Moderation messages
sent by Slashdot Message System
between Saturday 15 January 2005 and Tuesday 15 February 2005

[97KB list removed]

Summary:

Positive moderations: 227
Negative moderations: 84
Undone moderations: 1
Total: 311 Karma fluctuations
Final result: +143

Moderation spectrum:

+70, Funny
+66, Insightful
+48, Interesting
+35, Informative
-30, Overrated
-27, Troll
-14, Offtopic
+8, Underrated
-7, Redundant
-6, Flamebait

As you can see, during the last 30 days, I got 227 positive and 84 negative moderations. The total result was +143 points. Not counting the Funny moderations which actually does not increase the Karma, it is +73 effective increase of Karma, enough to get from the Terrible Karma to Excellent, but I had Excellent Karma before and Excellent Karma after that month, so thanks to the Karma Cap, my actual Karma did not change at all. And then, one day of moderation abuse has costed me 17 points. Notice that 71% of that abusive moderation was Overrated which will be excluded from the metamoderation process, so the dishonest moderator will not face any consequences unless Slashdot editors routinely verify strange moderation patterns even of those moderators who don't get any Unfair metamoderations.

I have lost Karma: Excellent, my trademark since I invented the "Karma: Excellent (Mostly due to ...)" Slashdot signature. But I have just lost something much more important than that, something much more valuable. I have lost time and energy on writing this post. And this is something that I will never get back. I feel violated, brutally raped by Slashdot moderators. And that is something that will be hard to forget. I will have to live with that shame. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.

P.S. I have heard about plans to start a petition asking Slashdot editors to set the $rtbl flag (the secret Slashdot blacklist flag) of those moderators who participaded in this moderation abuse scandal, to ban them for life just like those who moderated this post (readable link) three years ago (details). I believe it would be a good idea. Slashdot is too important for such outrageous abuses of power.

I submitted this story few hours ago and it just got rejected. Fortunately I saved the text so writing it was not a total waste of time and I can at least repost it here:

Jason Victor Serinus of the Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity and the Bay Area Audiophile Society have conducted a blind test to answer the question whether using $2500 Nordost Valhalla AC power cords to connect high quality audio systems to the electric outlet makes any audible difference. The entire procedure and the test results are described in the article Can We Hear Differences Between AC Power Cords? and further explained by James Randi in his commentary entitled A Proper Audio Test At Last.

The result of this test was negative but it is worth noting that a positive result would qualify for the one-million-dollar prize offered by James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) "to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." James Randi, or The Amazing Randi, a magician best known for investigating and demystifying of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims, has written about suspicious audio mods many times in his Commentary column. The items described include a $485 wooden potentiometer knobs and $120/oz audio lacquer, as well as various stones and audio tuning stickers (an idea similar to the battery life extending sticker recently described on Slashdot and by Randi).

In the past, all of the people from the audiophile community contacted by Randi refused to take the one-million-dollar challenge. This time Randi wrote: "Kudos! To Mr. Jason Victor Serinus for his courage to test his abilities and abide by the results, to his colleagues who participated with him, to the editor of "Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity," and to the Bay Area Audiophile Society."

This is a very good news for any true audiophile and melomaniac. In the world of high quality audio equipment it is not uncommont to see expensive products with no scientific basis sold to unsuspecting consumers. It is important to know that there are honest people like Jason Victor Serinus who conduct proper tests and provide reliable source of knowledge to their readers so we can be sure that we spend our money only on products that indeed increase the quality of our audio systems.

One has to wonder why stories about tsunami creatures, psychic random number generators and miraculous stickers are reported on Slashdot as facts (not "BatMax claimed to have developed" but "BatMax developed," not "the sticker is claimed to extend" but "extends the mobile phone battery life and reduces charging time" etc.), to the point that we are laughed at by James Randy's readers, but an actual scientific blind test of similar gadgets gets rejected in no time. Is it time to reevaluate my opinion of Slashdot being a serious news website?

Somewhen after this post and before this one, Slashdot started to silently convert dashes to double hyphens, apostrophes and quotation marks to single and double prime or inch signs, and removing certain characters completely, like the euro symbol (the dollar symbol works fine). This is a big step backwards. I strongly object to silently introducing typographical errors in my articles. We cannot tolerate it in one of the most important medium of our times. While the most fundamental aspect, i.e. the quality of the content of the texts published here is even more than very satisfactory, let us not forget about the presentation of said content if we are ever to be considered a serious journalist community by the rest of the world. I hope this problem will be fixed soon.

Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.

I thought so but later doubted it. Now I am unsure.

I thought I would write a novel in November but I have just come to the conclusion thah it might be sadly much less likely than I previously thought.

In a recent Guardian article, Oliver Burkeman thoroughly explains how non-Americans could hypothetically have a chance of influencing the outcome of the United States Presidential Election by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio and contacting the US media. In the first three days after publishing, more than 11,000 people requested addresses, but many strong voices of protest from the US readers have showed that despite foreigners attempt to meddle in US affairs it appears that Americans have their minds quite made up even in swing states such as Ohio. It has provided, however, an interesting insight into a way how American voters can influence others, thus having their voice heard and making the vote itself more meaningful. As this article shows, a single individual US voter has more power and more responsibility than voting alone, as an American and as a citizen, but nevertheless voting is the most important duty.

(I got it from Sheetrock who got it from Cruel, wrote a story, got rejected, rewrote and got rejected again. Slashdot editors don't want you to read it! You have been warned. Feel free to resubmit as your own story.)

I think I will write a novel in November, The National Novel Writing Month, mentioned on Slashdot in the Kamikaze Novel Writing story. It seems like a good idea. I might need some practicing but there is over a week left. OK, here we go.

The night was...

Maybe I'll finish later, I have some important work to do now.

"The result of the US election will affect the lives of millions around the world but those of us outside the 50 states have had no say in it -- until now," writes Guardian Unlimited, one of the most popular online news resources on the Internet, in the article entitled My fellow non-Americans. "In a unique experiment, [Guardian] has assembled a democratic toolkit to enable people from Basildon to Botswana to campaign in the presidential race. And with a little help from the folks in Clark County, Ohio, you might help decide who takes up residence in the White House next month."

In this article Oliver Burkeman thoroughly explains how non-Americans can have a real chance of influencing the outcome of the United States presidential election in 2004 by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio. He also instructs how to give money and make your voice heard by contacting the US media. More can be read in the related articles, A brief guide to Clark County and Dear Clark County voter.

In the first three days after publishing My fellow non-Americans, more than 11,000 people requested addresses and due to a strong reaction of US readers Guardian Unlimited has received many voices of protest.

According to Wikipedia, Ohio is a swing state. "The mixture of urban and rural areas, and the presense of both large blue-collar industries and significant white-collar commercial districts leads to a balance of conservative and liberal population that (together with the state's 20 electoral votes, more than most swing states) makes the state very important to the outcome of national elections and, therefore, very important to the campaigns of both major parties."

Guardian Unlimited is an on-line version of the British newspaper The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian. It is a serious broadsheet newspaper with relatively left wing politics.

Pending...

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Fellow Slashdotters!

Behold a new record!

Look at this Slashdot message with sections originally divided with horizontal lines changed into an ordered list for your convenience:

Comment Moderation
sent by Slashdot Message System on 0:05 Monday 18 October 2004

1. This is great , posted to Itty Bitty SCSI Hard Drive Arrives , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
2. This is great , posted to Itty Bitty SCSI Hard Drive Arrives , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
3. This is great , posted to Itty Bitty SCSI Hard Drive Arrives , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
4. This is great , posted to Itty Bitty SCSI Hard Drive Arrives , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (1).
5. No , posted to Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Normal (0).
6. C code? , posted to Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (2).
7. Indeed , posted to Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).
8. IBM slashdotted? , posted to System Recovery with Knoppix , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
9. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).
10. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (3).
11. No , posted to Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Troll (-1).
12. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Offtopic (-1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).
13. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (3).
14. I have two tools , posted to Building Tools to Track Election Problems , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).
15. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (4).
16. Indeed , posted to Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
17. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
18. Important to note , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Informative (+1). It is currently scored Informative (2).
19. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (2).
20. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Informative (+1). It is currently scored Informative (3).
21. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (4).
22. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
23. Important to note , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Informative (1).
24. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
25. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
26. Important to note , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Normal (0).
27. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Funny (3).
28. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Troll (-1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
29. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (4).
30. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Informative (+1). It is currently scored Funny (5).
31. A user had given a moderation of Informative (+1) to your comment, Some background , attached to Linus Interviewed . That moderation has now been undone, probably due to the user posting in the discussion after moderating in it. Your comment is currently scored Funny (4).
32. Some background , posted to Linus Interviewed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (5).
33. What? , posted to Data Miners Moving to Offshore Data Havens , has been moderated Overrated (-1). It is currently scored Insightful (3).
34. Question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (2).
35. 30 Years? , posted to 30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (2).
36. 30 Years? , posted to 30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (3).
37. Question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (3).
38. Amazing , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Offtopic (-1). It is currently scored Offtopic (0).
39. Question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (4).
40. 30 Years? , posted to 30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (4).
41. Question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (5).
42. 30 Years? , posted to 30 Years Of Dungeons And Dragons , has been moderated Funny (+1). It is currently scored Funny (5).
43. Interesting question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (2).
44. Interesting question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
45. Interesting question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (4).
46. Indeed , posted to Obfuscated Vote Counting Contest , has been moderated Interesting (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (4).
47. I agree , posted to Winners of the 'Google CodeJam 2004' Contest , has been moderated Informative (+1). It is currently scored Interesting (3).
48. Serious question , posted to The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed , has been moderated Insightful (+1). It is currently scored Insightful (2).

(Please remember to add one point of Karma bonus to all of those final scores.)

Summary:

Positive moderations: 35
Negative moderations: 12
Undone moderations: 1 (positive)
Total: 48 Karma fluctuations
Final result: +22

All in all, a pretty good day.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you very much!

Yours truly,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.

P.S. Let those who changed numerical Karma status to the descriptive one be damned!

Karma before: Excellent
Karma after: Excellent
Time: Wasted
Conclusion: Get a life

Pan T. Hose writes "It is a well known fact that over ten million comments have been posted on Slashdot and soon we'll have the millionth user in our community. According to $$$$$exyGal and britneys 9th husband, we reached one, two and three million posts in unknown years, four million in 2001 and five in 2002. In the year 2003 we reached both six and seven million, while in 2004 we had eight, nine and an amazing round number of ten (sic!) million posts thanks to ObviousGuy whom I have proudly moderated up to Score:5 for breaking this record and interestingly enough never got any mod points since then. How many pages would it take if every single Slashdot comment was to be printed? How many thousand-page books would that be? Would it all fit in The Library of Congress? How long would it take to read it all out loud? How long would it take for Echelon to process when read over telephone? Would it be even possible for one person to read? I would like to ask Slashdotters, how much text do you have on your websites? Have you ever read or even seen a larger respository of knowledge than Slashdot? I think it is important to thank Slashdot editors for the amazing success they have achieved. Even five years ago no one would ever thought that a niche technology related weblog would eventually transform in one of the greatest achievements of modern journalism and the central point of independent exchange of opinion for the intelligentsia of the 21st century all over the world, and now after the brilliant idea of adding new Politics section only Google News might be considered a competition to Slashdot. I wonder if there are any websites which Slashdotters would consider equally important for the task of propagating human knowledge and increasing the overall level of intelligence. What are your favourite websites? Any interesting stories? Anyone?"

Story submitted on Sunday 17 October 2004. Status: Pending...

The long awaited release of Parrot 0.1.1 "Poicephalus" has been finally announced on perl.perl6.internals newsgroup and perl6-internals mailing list simultaneously by Leopold Toetsch followed by an announcement on use Perl by Will Coleda and now also on Slashdot. The most important changes since the previous version 0.1.0 code-named "Leaping Kakapo" released in February are:

• Python support: Parrot runs 4/7 of the pie-thon test suite
• Better OS support: more platforms, compilers, OS functions
• Improved PIR syntax for method calls and <op>= assignment
• Dynamic loading reworked including a "make install" target
• MMD - multi method dispatch for binary vtable methods
• Library improvement and cleanup
• BigInt, Complex, *Array, Slice, Enumerate, None PMC classes
• IA64 and hppa JIT supprt
• Tons of fixes, improvements, new tests, and documentation updates

The amazing project which no one had any idea would go so far from the original April Fool's Joke by Simon Cozens (also posted on Slashdot on April 1, 2001) to really unite Perl and Python one day (not to mention Tcl, Scheme, Forth and Ruby, to name just a few) is now available for download from CPAN and via CVS. Those who are not up-to-date with Perl 6 mailing lists can read This Week in Perl 6 weekly summaries by Piers Cawley to have some idea on how's the project been going in the last two years. It's important to read Apocalypses, Exegeses and Synopses together with RFCs and Parrot Design Documents for better understanding of the underlying rationale, especially the superiority of register-based Virtual Machines (like Parrot VM) over stack-based one (like JVM) for modern (dynamically-typed) OO languages with multiple inheritance, operator overloading, traits, roles and much, much more. Parrot Docs, FAQ and examples are also very helpful. This is a very important step in the direction of Perl 6 which we are all looking forward to.

10 October 2004: Pending...

I was just wondering: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age? So I asked Google: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?"

Google fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of modem lights ceased, the distant sounds of beeping router ended.

Then, just as I felt I could hold my breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the browser connected to Google. Five words were printed:

"INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

The long awaited Apocalypse 12 by Larry Wall has been just announced by chromatic on perl6-language mailing list. It is one of the most important documents explaining the Perl 6 language design. (All of the previous design decisions are available as Apocalypses by Larry Wall, Exegeses by Damian Conway and Synopses by Luke Palmer, Damian Conway and Allison Randal.) Apocalypse 12 talks about Object Oriented aspects of Perl 6, i.e. about Objects, Classes, Roles (also known as Traits), Multiple Dispatch and also covers some non-OO decisions:

"The official, unofficial slogan of Perl 6 is "Second System Syndrome Done Right!". After you read this Apocalypse you will at least be certain that we got the "Second System" part down pat. But we've also put in a little bit of work on the "Done Right" part, which we hope you'll recognize. The management of complexity is complex, but only if you think about it. The goal of Perl 6 is to discourage you from thinking about it unnecessarily." --- Larry Wall.

Table of contents:

Some of the Problems with Perl 5 OO

• A little too orthogonal
• Not quite orthogonal enough
• Forced non-encapsulation
• A little too minimal
• Too much keyword reuse
• Too difficult to capture metadata
• Inside-out interfaces
• Not enough convention
• Wrong conventions
• Everything possible, but difficult

Perl 5 Non-Problems

• Generating class by running code at compile time
• There are many roads to polymorphism
• People using a class shouldn't have to think hard

Trust in Convention, But Keep Your Powder Dry

An Easy Example

Classes

• Declaration of classes
  • Class traits
• Use of classes
• Class name semantics
• Private classes

Methods

• Declaration of methods
• Use of methods
  • The dot notation
  • The "indirect object" notation
  • Calling private methods

Class Methods

• Class invocant
• Class|object invocant

Submethods

Attributes

• Declaration of attributes
• Use of attributes
• Default values

Class Attributes

Object Construction

• The default constructor
  • The default cloner
• CREATE
• BUILDALL
• BUILD
• Eliminating redundancy in constructor calls

Object Deconstruction

• DESTROYALL
• DESTROY

Dispatch Mechanisms

• Single dispatch
• Calling superclasses, and not-so-superclasses
• Parallel dispatch
• WALKCLASS and WALKMETH caching

Multiple Dispatch

• Declaration of multiple dispatch routines
  • multi sub
  • multi sub * (tradition multimethods)
  • multi method
  • multi submethod
  • multi rule
  • multi submethod BUILD
  • multi method constructors
• Calling via multiple dispatch
  • Multiple dispatch semantics
  • Single dispatch semantics
  • Indirect objects
• Meaning of "next METHOD"
• Making fiends, er, friends

Overloading

• Binary ops

Class Composition with Roles

• Declaration of roles
  • Parametric types
  • Interfaces
  • Private interfaces
  • Encapsulated attributes
  • Encapsulated private attributes
  • Encapsulated delegation
  • Encapsulated inheritance
• Use of roles at compile time
  • Conflict resolution
• Use of roles at runtime (mixins)

Traits

Delegation

• Wildcard delegation
• Renaming delegated methods
• Delegation without an attribute
• Delegation of handlers
• Hash-based redispatch
• Relationship to roles
• Anonymous delegation for ISA emulation

Types and Subtypes

Enums

Open vs. Closed Classes

Interface Consistency

Collections of Classes

• In classes
• In modules

Versioning

• Version declarations
• Use of version and author wildcards

Introspection

Other Non-OO Decisions

• Exportation
• The gather/take construct
• :foo() adverbs
• Special quoting of identifiers inside curlies going away
• Vector operators renamed back to "hyper" operators
• Unary hyper operators now use one quote rather than two
• $thumb.twiddle no longer requires parens when interpolated
• The =:= identity operator
• New grammatical categories
• Assignment to state variable declaration now does "first" semantics
• The length() function is gone
• String positions
• The new "&" separator in Regexen

Optional Mandatory Cross-Disciplinary Joke for People Tired of Dogs

Future Directions

References...er, Reference...

You can access the entire document as a print friendly version. The standard version of Apocalypse 12 is divided into 20 parts. Enjoy.

If you are new to Perl 6 and Parrot, then Perl 6 Essentials by Allison Randal, Dan Sugalski and Leopold Tötsch might be a great introduction. The second edition should be published soon.

Slashdot story submitted on 11:14 Saturday 17 April 2004 UTC. Pending...

On Sophistical Refutations

Written by Aristoteles, 350 B.C.E. Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge.

Part 1

Let us now discuss sophistic refutations, i.e. what appear to be refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in the natural order with the first.

That some reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so but are not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere, through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. For physically some people are in a vigorous condition, while others merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out as the tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; and some people are beautiful thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by dint of embellishing themselves. So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden. In the same way both reasoning and refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so: for inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a distant view of these things. For reasoning rests on certain statements such that they involve necessarily the assertion of something other than what has been stated, through what has been stated: refutation is reasoning involving the contradictory of the given conclusion. Now some of them do not really achieve this, though they seem to do so for a number of reasons; and of these the most prolific and usual domain is the argument that turns upon names only. It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the actual things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them; and therefore we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the things as well, just as people who calculate suppose in regard to their counters. But the two cases (names and things) are not alike. For names are finite and so is the sum-total of formulae, while things are infinite in number. Inevitably, then, the same formulae, and a single name, have a number of meanings. Accordingly just as, in counting, those who are not clever in manipulating their counters are taken in by the experts, in the same way in arguments too those who are not well acquainted with the force of names misreason both in their own discussions and when they listen to others. For this reason, then, and for others to be mentioned later, there exists both reasoning and refutation that is apparent but not real. Now for some people it is better worth while to seem to be wise, than to be wise without seeming to be (for the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom); for them, then, it is clearly essential also to seem to accomplish the task of a wise man rather than to accomplish it without seeming to do so. To reduce it to a single point of contrast it is the business of one who knows a thing, himself to avoid fallacies in the subjects which he knows and to be able to show up the man who makes them; and of these accomplishments the one depends on the faculty to render an answer, and the other upon the securing of one. Those, then, who would be sophists are bound to study the class of arguments aforesaid: for it is worth their while: for a faculty of this kind will make a man seem to be wise, and this is the purpose they happen to have in view.

Clearly, then, there exists a class of arguments of this kind, and it is at this kind of ability that those aim whom we call sophists. Let us now go on to discuss how many kinds there are of sophistical arguments, and how many in number are the elements of which this faculty is composed, and how many branches there happen to be of this inquiry, and the other factors that contribute to this art.