Version 2.5.0 of the Parrot virtual machine released

The Parrot Foundation developers have announced the release of version 2.5.0 of the Parrot virtual machine, code named "Cheops", which will run the Rakudo implementation of Perl 6. Perl 6, unlike Perl 5, keeps the compiler and runtime separate and Parrot is being developed as the runtime virtual machine for Perl 6 compiled code. However, Parrot is not limited to Perl 6; it has support for other dynamic languages, including PHP, Python and Ruby, at various stages of completion.

Parrot 2.5.0 features a number of core changes, including the addition of a ByteBuffer PMC (PolyMorphic Container) to allow direct byte manipulation, various STRING API clean-ups and increased test coverage of core PMCs. Additionally, the experimental 'unroll' opcode has been renamed to 'finalize'. Other changes include updated support for multisubs and multimethods and the addition of \e strings. The developers note that, moving towards the next set of planned refactors for the core of Parrot (Lorito), all ops are now built with the self-hosted opsc compiler and that packages for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL) beta are now also available.

More details about the release can be found in the official release announcement. Parrot 2.5.0 is available to download from the project's FTP site and documentation is provided. Parrot is released under version 2 of the Artistic License. The next planned release is scheduled for the 20th of July, 2010.

See also:

• Healthcheck: Perl, a report from The H.

(crve)