Author Archive

PIR is Parrot’s native programming language. In this conclusion of his series, chromatic presents a variety of techniques to program and validate subroutines. Learn how to create libraries and test your code in this hands-on primer.

Parrot is not just a virtual machine for running dynamic languages; it also includes several tools for building dynamic languages, including a grammars engine and a tree transformation system. Currently, all of these tools are available through PIR, Parrot’s native programming language.

Besides serving as what is hoped to be an appropriate and effective platform for Perl 6 and other languages, Parrot is a grand experiment. Is there a better way to write a compiler than using the lex and yacc model? Can languages interoperate at a deeper level than sharing a set of calling conventions? Here are some answers.