FAQ

F.A.Q. - Fervently Anticipated Questions
(This package is too new for anyone to have actually asked yet.)

Q:  Is this the "official" Perl5-to-Perl6 translator?
A:  No, this is a "tinkertoy" project of one of the Perl 6 developers.
    However, it might still be the best translator for your needs.

Q:  Well, then where *is* the "official" Perl5-to-Perl6 translator?
A:  There isn't one (yet?). The one that Larry Wall is working on (called MAD)
    does not yet emit Perl 6 output. See Notes/mad.txt for more details.
A:  Perlito is a compiler collection that implements a subset of Perl 5 and Perl 6.
    If your code's syntax fits into the Perlito subset of Perl 5, then it can emit
    a Perl 6 version of your code. YMMV as to whether Perlito or Blue Tiger better
    serves your translation needs. Perlito's objectives are quite different
    (and much broader) than Blue Tiger; neither is a subset of the other.
    See http://www.perlito.org/ .
A:  According to Larry at YAPC::NA::2010, the only thing that will be "official"
    in the Perl 6 ecosystem is the language specification and its test suite.
    Everything else is free to have multiple designs, implementations, etc.
    I had asked specifically because he had claimed the translator project for
    himself several years ago, and I did not want to step on any toes.

Q:  What is Perl::Modernize?
A:  Perl::Modernize is the intended namespace for the whole Blue Tiger project.
    Even though all the early work has been focused on 5->6, I intend the
    first released module in Perl::Modernize to be a 5->5 translator, that
    automatically places my() in the correct positions in code that is not
    `use strict` compliant.
    See my 5-minute Lightning talk, "Modernizing Perl, Automatically", at
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bohxcat4g-A&t=22m10s (22m10s - 27m07s).
    Slides here:
    http://s3.datasaw.com/yapc/modernizing_perl_automatically.pdf

Q:  Why is the project named "Blue Tiger"?
A:  For a confluence of reasons:
    * The spokesbug for Perl 6 is Camelia, a butterfly.
    * This is a migration project.
    * A migrating butterfly would be good as a project name.
    * The best-known migrating butterfly is the Monarch.
    * This was (at the time) not expected to be the primary migration tool.
    * The Blue Tiger (Tirumala limniace) is a migratory butterfly that is
      not Monarch.
    * The initial bulk of the project was written in Auburn, home of the Auburn
      _Tigers_ football team, whose colors are orange and
      _blue_.
    * Much of the code was written overlooking a butterfly garden.

Q:  Why didn't you use Perl 6 to write the translator itself?
A:  Good question; after all, the new Perl 6 "grammars" are a powerful
    object-oriented fusion of Perl 5's regexes and Parse::RecDescent.
    However, the few Perl 6 grammars for parsing Perl 5 are all
    experimental, and are not mature/stable/complete/API'ed enough to
    support this project. Speed is also a big issue during development.
    Once something like PPI is written in Perl 6, and Perl 6
    implementations get fast enough to not impede the translator
    development, then this whole project might be re-written in Perl 6.