# Announce: Rakudo Perl 6 compiler, Release 2016.08.1

On behalf of the Rakudo development team, I'm announcing an
out-of-schedule release of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler.
Rakudo is an implementation of Perl 6 on the Moar Virtual Machine[^1].

This release is a point release in addition to the regular, monthly
releases. Rakudo 2016.08 (note: no .1) references a problematic NQP[^3] git tag.
While testing did not reveal any issues when building 2016.08 Rakudo from
scratch, users who pulled in new changes into existing repositories had build
issues where the configuration script was failing to find that NQP tag.
The 2016.08.1 NQP was released to fix the tag issues and Rakudo 2016.08.1 is
being released as a pre-emptive measure.

The tarball for this release is available from <http://rakudo.org/downloads/rakudo/>.

New in 2016.08.1:
   + No changes, other than an updated build reference to the new NQP tag


Please note: This announcement is not for the Rakudo Star
distribution[^2] --- it’s announcing a new release of the compiler
only. For the latest Rakudo Star release, see
<http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/>.

The next release of Rakudo (#102), is tentatively scheduled for 2016-08-20.

A list of the other planned release dates is available in the
“docs/release_guide.pod” file.

The development team appreciates feedback! If you’re using Rakudo, do
get back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions for improvements, cool
discoveries, incredible hacks, or any other feedback -- get in touch with
us through (the above-mentioned) mailing list or IRC channel. Enjoy!

Please note that recent releases have known issues running on the JVM.
We are working to get the JVM backend working again but do not yet have
an estimated delivery date.

[^1]: See <http://moarvm.org/>

[^2]: What’s the difference between the Rakudo compiler and the Rakudo
Star distribution?

[^3]: NQP stands for 'Not Quite Perl', which is a language/environment
that Rakudo is largely written in. See https://github.com/perl6/nqp

The Rakudo compiler is a compiler for the Perl 6 language.
Not much more.

The Rakudo Star distribution is the Rakudo compiler plus a selection
of useful Perl 6 modules, a module installer, the most recent
incarnation of the “Using Perl 6” book, and other software that can
be used with the Rakudo compiler to enhance its utility.