[Perl 6] Feedback from a a person new to Perl 6

[zoffixznet]

Hey,

Just some of my feedback for what I found confusing on the tutorial; I'm totally new to Perl 6:

Content and Terms

• Currently this and this emit warnings about whitespace insignificance. Need to quote
• Here is confusing, because first you create an "infinite" array, and then proceed to talk about using closure and length. What's the length of an infinite array? I tried running the code and it just sat there. The closure examples likely need something like my @array = 1..20; before them.
• This whole note should probably just be removed: It has virtually no value, even for Perl 5 programmers (me being one of them); it's superfluous in the context of a "quick Perl 6 tut"; and the tutorial doesn't actually explain what keyword package does, so mentioning at all is confusing.
• Here, it's confusing by what is meant by using packages directly. Should it be worded using "package" keyword directly?
• Here it's not clear at all what assert pre/post- condition is. Maybe add an example? Or remove some phasers from the tut
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This makes me feel the implementation is broken or that I shouldn't be using inheritance. The line should either be removed or it should be briefly explained what exactly is the issue with inheritance.
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here abc => ABC for extra clarity
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Output here should be ae
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This actually dies now with Unable to deduce arithmetic or geometric sequence
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 ~~Here splat?? No idea what that is. I think it's @ or *@. Check and add explanation. It's the * (from Ruby's term for an operator like that). Need to clarify in the docs
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 I'd suggest removing ENTER from this line here, since ENTER phaser there is superfluous and the example confuses about the purpose of the ENTER phaser; makes you question what difference it provides there as opposed to plain $db.start-transaction;
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This, this, this, this, this (and one below it) lines are too long and get cut off
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Is executed the right term to use here? Would initialized be clearer?
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This entire paragraph should be rewritten. It starts with our..., then mentions my even though it was just mentioned a few lines prior, then it mentions some previous part, which made me go huh? wat?
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This does not seem to be the case any longer. I get Semicolon form of 'module' without 'unit' is illegal. You probably want to use 'unit module'
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 ~~Here I've no idea what the autoquoted => "key" bit does. How does the auto-quotation mechanism work? I've just now realized that autoquoted is a name of a key and not a processing instruction. What confused me is that when I dumped the hash with say %hash.perl;, I got {:autoquoted("key"), "some other" => "value"}, which made me think :autoquoted was something special. The key autoquoted should be renamed to something more generic and easily recognizable; e.g foo => "bar"
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here, that line should probably be moved all the way to here. In its current place it doesn't make much sense. Also, here, I'd change capture to store in a variable.
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here it's unclear what Any is. It's explained a few lines below, here, and I think some confusion can be avoided by moving explanation to earlier in the text.
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This bit is really confusing. I logged in to IRC to ask the channel, and then recalled Larry's talk about "magic" in list generation. It's not obvious how the values are generated in that sequence. It should be explained in the comments or use more obvious pattern, like my @seq = 0, 5, 10 ...^ * > 100;
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here there seems to be
  some confusion in the comments with $*a vs. $*foo
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here the sentences about $. and $! seem broken and are confusing.
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 This entire section seems to use term "fields" for class's attribute. Perl 6 devs call them attributes and so do some other languages. It would be nice to have consistency in nomenclature.

Typos

• fixed by Fixes typos and removed useless spaces #1393 Here paramater => parameter
• fixed by Fixes typos and removed useless spaces #1393 Here want is a copy => want a copy
• fixed by Fixes typos and removed useless spaces #1393 Here languages => languages'
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here examinate => examine
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here Opening ( is not needed
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here try => tried
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 here denomitor => denominator
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here those that can have => those that can, have
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Remove word instead here
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here: trick => tricks
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here not => no
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here return => returns
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here functions => function
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here runs the an array with all these => returns an array with all of these
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here argument => arguments
• fixed by Many fixes mentioned in #1390 #1434 Here perl 6 => perl6

[vendethiel]

I have a hard time believing you're new to it... But thanks ;-).

[Ribeiro]

@vendethiel Me too ! =D

[zoffixznet]

@vendethiel @Ribeiro lol, I wonder what it is about me that makes that suspicious? :) I've been meaning to learn Perl 6 for a while, but never had the time. Learning now though.

As for the PR: I actually found more stuff (I'm midway through the tutorial right now). I'll keep adding what I find to the list above and when I'm done with the tutorial I'll make a PR for anything that I can fix :)

[vendethiel]

I've seen you on IRC pretty often

[Ribeiro]

@zoffixznet Please, keep up the good work since Perl seems like hieroglyphs to me =D

[zoffixznet]

I'm finished. The few items that I werent able to answer in my PR (#1434) are the non-crossed out items at the top :)

[BenGoldberg1]

You're first item, a comment about a possible misfeature is because many peope believe that multiple inheritance is a bad thing, and that simply having it in the langauge is a bad thing. There is of course nothing wrong with perl6's implementation of inheritance, nor in it's implementation of multiple inheritance.

[zoffixznet]

Thanks! I've updated the PR (removed the misfeature comment, since it's not really fitting for the context of a short, quickie tut).

[vendethiel]

ae9762f

---

Here is confusing, because first you create an "infinite" array, and then proceed to talk about using closure and length. What's the length of an infinite array? I tried running the code and it just sat there. The closure examples likely need something like my @array = 1..20; before them.

This was added at some point:

# Note: if you try to do either of those with an infinite array,
#       you'll trigger an infinite loop (your program won't finish)

This whole note should probably just be removed: It has virtually no value, even for Perl 5 programmers (me being one of them); it's superfluous in the context of a "quick Perl 6 tut"; and the tutorial doesn't actually explain what keyword package does, so mentioning at all is confusing.

Those were removed at a previous time

Here, it's confusing by what is meant by using packages directly. Should it be worded using "package" keyword directly?

That was reworded at some point, but I changed it again.

Here it's not clear at all what assert pre/post- condition is. Maybe add an example? Or remove some phasers from the tut

I added a (hopefully better) explanation.

---

@zoffixznet If you agree those are fixed, we can close this :-).

[zoffixznet]

Thanks!