Pugs is a compiler and interpreter for the Raku programming language, started on February 1, 2005, by Audrey Tang. (At the time, Raku was known as Perl 6.)
Pugs development is now placed on hiatus,[1] with most Raku implementation efforts now taking place on Rakudo.
The Pugs project aimed to bootstrap Perl 6 by implementing the full Perl 6 specification, as detailed in the Synopses. It is written in Haskell, specifically targeting the Glasgow Haskell Compiler.
Pugs includes two main executables:
Pugs is free software, distributable under the terms of either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License.[2] These are the same terms as Perl.
The major/minor version numbers of Pugs converges to 2π (being reminiscent of TeX and METAFONT, which use a similar scheme); each significant digit in the minor version represents a successfully completed milestone. The third digit is incremented for each release. The current milestones are:
As of version 6.2.6, Pugs also has the ability to embed Perl 5 and use CPAN modules installed on the system. The example below demonstrates the use of the popular Perl DBI module to manage a database:
#!/usr/bin/pugs
use v6;
use perl5:DBI;
my $dbh = DBI.connect('dbi:SQLite:dbname=test.db');
$dbh.do("CREATE TABLE Test (Project, Pumpking)");
my $sth = $dbh.prepare("INSERT INTO Test VALUES (?, ?)");
$sth.execute(<PGE Patrick>);
$sth.execute(<Pugs Audrey>);
$sth.execute(<Parrot Leo>);
my $res = $dbh.selectall_hashref('SELECT * FROM Test', 'Pumpking');
# Just another Pugs hacker
say "Just another $res<Audrey><Project> hacker";
Several factors have been suggested as reasons for Pugs's progress:
Despite these factors, progress on the Haskell implementation stalled in late 2006, as personal issues kept Audrey from devoting as much time to the project as she had in 2005.
Many Pugs contributors have since moved on to implement Perl6-inspired systems as CPAN modules on Perl 5, such as the Moose project.
