M0 Status for Parrot Developer Summit May '04

gistfile1.txt

Dukeleto and I have been working together to build what we expect to be the
final prototype of M0 .  I say "final prototype" because we expect this to be
the last implementation needed to shake out holes in the specification.  We're
prototyping an M0 assembler and M0 bytecode interpreter, using Perl 5 as the
implementation language.  The interpreter is at the stage where it can load and
run bytecode, though no non-trivial ops have been implemented or tested.  The
assembler is a couple weeks from producing valid bytecode.  Once the
assembler is producing valid bytecode, we'll have a solid platform for M0
experimentation.

A large part of the value of the current work is the tests that we're writing.
While we expect to eventually throw out or mothball the prototype interpreter
and assembler, we'll keep the test suite around.  That will complement the spec
and will provide a straightforward way to verify a final implementation's
completeness.