# Announce: Rakudo Perl 6 compiler, Development Release #66 ("Edinburgh")

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm proud to announce the
July 2013 release of Rakudo Perl #66 "Edinburgh". Rakudo is an
implementation of Perl 6 on the Parrot Virtual Machine (see
<http://www.parrot.org>) and the Java Virtual Machine. The tarball for
this release is available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/>.

Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution[^1] --- 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 July 2013 release is
code-named after Edinburgh.pm, 'twas there that a now core hacker
lived when he got involved with Perl 6.

Some of the changes in this release are outlined below:

+ Huge progress in JVM backend (feature-wise almost on par with Parrot)
+ fixed handling of indented heredocs
+ basic support for threads and promises (JVM only)
+ implemented canonpath for Win32 IO::Spec
+ implemented squish
+ made []:(kv|p|k|v) work according to spec

These are only some 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, Elizabeth Mattijsen, Stefan O'Rear, Timo Paulssen,
Solomon Foster, Brent Laabs, Tobias Leich, Will "Coke" Coleda, Carl Masak,
Moritz Lenz, Donald Hunter, Stéphane Payrard, Patrick R. Michaud,
Tadeusz Sośnierz, Larry Wall, GlitchMr

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 (#67), is scheduled for August 22, 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.


[^1]: 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, a module installer, 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.
