The parrot people are on a rampage tonight, and some amazing work is getting done in a hurry. The emphasis here is not on adding new features, but on removing old and unused ones. The Polymorphic Inline Cache (PIC) code, which I had just been starting to learn about, is being ripped out by Coke. chromatic also suggested that we remove most of the runcores too, since they aren't often tested and some of them (such as the computed goto and predereferenced computed goto cores) are only available to GCC users. Since we are aiming for platform neutrality and stability with the 1.0 release, removing things that don't work everywhere or things that aren't used often is a good idea.
Software Transactional Memory (STM) is also on the chopping block, being mostly unused and dependent on Parrot's older threading model. The IMS garbage collector and the GMS garbage collector, which I have never heard record of being functional, are also slated to be pulled out.
I've started working on the new GC again in the pdd09gc_part1 branch. The focus of that branch is to get a trimmed-down version of the tricolor collector I wrote over the summer working. I'm also working on an old nagging ticket to get executable code out of .h files, which has turned into a nightmare in the belly of the JIT beast. On the bright side, I'm learning about another subsystem so I'll be able to hack on it competently and write about it in the book without relying on bullshit.
