This is Rakudo Star, a useful, usable Perl 6 production distribution.

This is the 2016.04 release of Rakudo Star.

Rakudo Star is Copyright (C) 2010 - 2016 by the Rakudo Star Team.


License Information
-------------------
Rakudo Star is distributed under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.
This distribution contains software collected from other sources; see the
individual source subdirectories (in rakudo/, MoarVM/ and modules/)
for copyright and licensing information of those components.


Overview
--------
The Rakudo Perl 6 compiler can target MoarVM and the JVM. Rakudo Star fully
supports MoarVM; not all modules work on the JVM at present.  You can choose
to build and install Rakudo for one or more of these virtual machines at
configure time.


Build Prerequisites for Rakudo on MoarVM
----------------------------------------
To build Rakudo Star on MoarVM, you need at least a 'make' utility, a C
compiler, and Perl 5.10.0 or newer. Building Rakudo on MoarVM needs a
machine with a gigabyte of memory; for a 32-bit build, you may get by
with less.


Build Prerequisites for Rakudo on the JVM
-----------------------------------------
To build Rakudo Star on the JVM, you need at least a 'make' utility, both
'java' and 'javac' available in your path, and Perl 5.10.0 or newer. The
'java' and 'javac' are obtained by installing a Java Development kit, for
example openjdk-7 or the Oracle JDK.

The newer the JDK you have the better; due to bugs in the invokedynamic
instruction in early JDK7 releases, JDK7 update 21 or above is suggested.
JDK8, if available, is better still. The build can complete within a gigabyte
of memory.


Configuring Rakudo Star
-----------------------
The easiest way to build Rakudo Star for a particular backend is:

    $ perl Configure.pl --backend=moar --gen-moar       # MoarVM
    $ perl Configure.pl --backend=jvm --gen-nqp         # JVM

You can also build for all backends:

    $ perl Configure.pl --backend=moar,jvm --gen-moar

Note that --gen-moar automatically builds a MoarVM for you, and implies
--gen-nqp, which builds NQP, a subset of Perl 6 that is used to implement
Rakudo.

Please note that this release of Rakudo Star is not fully functional with the
JVM backend from the Rakudo compiler. Please use the MoarVM backend only.

Configured this way, one or more Perl 6 executables and selected Perl 6
modules will be installed into the install/ subdirectory, which resides inside
the source archive directory. Running make install will *not* install anything
into /usr/local. If you want to change this behavior, specify the install
prefix using the --prefix option.


Building Rakudo Star
--------------------
After configuration, build Rakudo Star with:

    $ make
    $ make install

Once Rakudo Star is installed, you can run Perl 6 programs by doing:

    $ ./perl6 hello.pl

Programs can also be run by adding the "install/bin" directory to your PATH
environment variable.

If the Rakudo compiler is invoked without an explicit script to run, it enters
a small interactive mode that allows Perl 6 statements to be executed from the
command line.


Running the Perl 6 test suite
-----------------------------
Entering "make rakudo-test" will run a small test suite that comes bundled
with Rakudo.  This is a simple suite of tests, designed to make sure that the
Rakudo compiler is basically working and that it's capable of running a simple
test harness.

Running "make rakudo-spectest" will run the Perl 6 specification test suite
("roast") that was bundled with the Rakudo compiler release.

Running "make modules-test" will run the test suites of any installed modules.
The modules currently have to be installed (via 'make install' or 'make
modules-install') before the tests can be run.


Release information
-------------------
Information about the current release is placed in the docs/ directory, here
is a brief overview:

 docs/cheatsheet.txt             —   Perl 6 cheat sheet
 docs/2015-spw-perl6-course.pdf  —   A short Perl 6 course
 docs/perl6intro.pdf             —   Recent snapshot of http://perl6intro.com/
 docs/announce/                  —   Detailed release announcements

Please note that the on-line version of perl6intro is available in multiple
languages, French and German at the time of writing.


Where to get help or answers to questions
-----------------------------------------
The http://perl6.org/ website contains a great many links to resources for
Perl 6 development, and is generally the starting point for information about
Perl 6.

There are several mailing lists, IRC channels, and wikis available with help
for Perl 6 and Rakudo.  Figuring out the right one to use is often the biggest
battle.  Here are some rough guidelines:

If you have a question about Perl 6 syntax or the right way to approach a
problem using Perl 6, you probably want the perl6-users@perl.org mailing list.
This list is primarily for the people who want to use Perl 6 to write
programs, as opposed to those who are implementing or developing the Perl 6
language itself.

Questions about the Rakudo compiler can go to perl6-compiler@perl.org.

The Rakudo and MoarVM development teams tend to hang out on IRC a fair
bit, on irc.freenode.net/#perl6 and irc.freenode.net/#moarvm, respectively.

Rakudo's official web site is http://rakudo.org/, where you can
find useful information for developers and users alike.


Reporting bugs
--------------
Bug reports about Rakudo Star or the Perl 6 specification should be sent to
rakudobug@perl.org with the moniker [BUG] (including the brackets) at the
start of the subject so that it gets appropriately tagged in the RT system
(https://rt.perl.org/rt3/).  Please include or attach any sample source code
that exhibits the bug, and include either the release name/date or the git
commit identifier. You find this information in the output from "perl6
--version".  There's no need to Cc: the perl6-compiler mailing list, as the RT
system will handle this on its own.


Submitting patches
------------------
Patches to the Rakudo compiler itself should be submitted to
'rakudobug@perl.org'.  Patches for individual modules should be submitted to
the module authors (see the module source code for details).

We'll generally accept patches in any form if we can get them to work, but
unified diff from the 'git' command is greatly preferred.  See further
instructions in the rakudo/ subdirectory for more details.  Other ways to
create and submit patches are discussed at
http://wiki.github.com/rakudo/rakudo/steps-to-create-a-patch.


AUTHOR
------
Patrick Michaud (pmichaud@pobox.com) was originally the primary author and
maintainer for Rakudo Star. See docs/CREDITS for further Rakudo Star authors,
and */CREDITS for authors of other collected components.

