Today's learning experience with Perl 6 was Smart Links. Smart Links refer to a special syntax used in the test suite which connect a particular part of a test script with a related point the Perl 6 specification.
Smart links are especially valuable for a language in development. They help answer these important questions:
- Has this feature been tested? If you don't see references to tests from the spec, there's a possibility the feature is not only untested, but unimplemented!
- Are there duplicates tests for this feature? If you see more than one test script linked in to the same point in the spec, it's possible there are duplicate tests, and the tests suite can be simplified.
- Is there a spec for this feature? On the other hand, if you find a test without a smart link, it may simply not have one yet, or the feature may be unspec'ed. It was discovered that the basic function "say" did not have a formal definition through this kind of review.
However, to the receive the benefits of smart linking, the smart links must actually exist. Today, 263 test scripts have at least one smart link, but 349 do not.
To help with this, you mostly just need some motivation to help, and commit access to the pugs tree. Ask for it on #perl6 if you don't have it.
I posted some specific tips on getting started with smart linking on the new Smart Linking wiki page
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