Ponie
Ponie is the code name of the Perl 5 on Parrot wanted, the virtual machine developed for Perl 6, for porting an open source project. Put simply, it translates Perl 5 code so that it can call Perl 6 functions and vice versa. Thus, the entire CPAN Perl should be placed 6 programs available.
The name Ponie is a backronym and stands for Perl On New Internal Engine, but was chosen as an allusion to the phrase " I want a pony", which was often used in the london.pm, Perls largest local user group to hard satisfiable desires express.
Background
Because there are so many programs and modules that are written in Perl 5, there are very strong personal and commercial interests that Perl as long as possible is 5 source code to run. It was also announced in the design of Perl 6, to make the transition as smooth as possible. With Ponie you can change with a Perl 5 program seamlessly to the new interpreter and translate as desired module by module, the entire application will be executed. Not least for Perl 6 programs remains with Ponie the great library of CPAN modules, contributing a large part to Perls practical use, can be used.
Development and Planning
These problems should be resolved by the July 8, launched in 2003 by the Perl Foundation and supported by the London- based software company Fotango Ponie project, which was announced at OSCON 2003 by Larry Wall. Originally Fotango Leaders Arthur Bergmann got the line, in 2005 took over his colleague Nicholas Clark. An alpha version of the project is available on the website available for download. It is planned to always keep up with the current Perl 5 step so that Ponie to be fully compatible with Perl 5.10 later. This is 5 6 make the transition from Perl to Perl simple as possible, because then everybody is free when he changes the language or interpreter technology. In Perl 5 written software can be ported from using Ponie bit after Perl6, which is particularly important for large projects and commercial software vendors. By porting to Parrot old Perl modules can in principle be used not only of Perl 6, but by all on Parrot executable languages.
Setting of the development
Since the project has not received enough support from the Perl online community and development was mainly driven solely by Fotango, his attitude was officially announced in August 2006 on the website of the Perl Foundation. It was examined to what extent one existing code, which is often used for other purposes, may be useful to re-use and recycle.
Successor
Since the objective of Ponie for the success of Perl 6 is crucial, there were several attempts to achieve it by other means. The currently most promising perspective provides optimized for Rakudo MoarVM.