Code question in per6/doc/htmlify.p6

Why the '\'?

# consider the following code from perl6/doc/htmlify.p6 starting at line 772:
pod-table($*DR.lookup($kind, :by<kind>)\
            .grep({$category ⊆ .categories})\ # XXX
            .categorize(*.name).sort(*.key)>>.value
            .map({[
                .map({.subkinds // Nil}).unique.join(', '),
                pod-link(.[0].name, .[0].url),
                .&summary
            ]})

# why won't this work instead:
pod-table($*DR.lookup($kind, :by<kind>)      # no backslash
            .grep({$category ⊆ .categories}) # no backslash
            .categorize(*.name).sort(*.key)>>.value
            .map({[
                .map({.subkinds // Nil}).unique.join(', '),
                pod-link(.[0].name, .[0].url),
                .&summary
            ]})

# it won't work because of Perl 6 parsing and lexing rules--see reference provided by geekosaur: 
#   http://design.perl6.org/S02.html#Unspaces

Lizmat thinks the backslashes are no longer needed--I'll try the code after changing them.

Later...it seems they are needed. See ending comment in the gist above.