YAPC::EU 2010 - The Renaissance of Perl - Perl 6: Prince of Parsea

Perl 6: Prince of Parsea

By Carl Mäsak (‎masak‎)
Date: Friday, 6 August 2010 12:00
Duration: 50 minutes
Target audience: Intermediate
Language: English
Tags: backtracking debugger dsl evil game metaphor parsing regex time travel ultimate vizier

Whether you're 'old skool' and think that Prince of Persia is about climbing your way up from the dungeons, duelling guards, drinking magic potions, and meeting the old vizier Jaffar in an epic battle; or you belong to the newer crowds who think that Prince of Persia is about battling all kinds of monsters using a dagger which can turn back time in moments of danger -- the fact is that both of these stories share an uncanny number of aspects with regexes, grammars and parsing in Perl 6. Watch as we parse ourselves out of the dungeons, battle ever more dangerous grammars, and even make use of the powerful but treacherous capability of jumping back through... time itself.

Some highlights of the talk: why GOSUB isn't enough for backtracking, how to debug your grammar, and an introduction to the amazing Thompson engine.

Carl Mäsak constantly tries (and fails) to be an evil vizier. He has travelled far and wide in search of a time-bending dagger, but so far only found a supersonic sewing needle, a collapsible neutron star, and a blowfish with an oedipus complex. Pending world domination, his vices include submitting Rakudo bugs, writing Perl 6 code, and being loud in mostly productive ways.