Hi, FYI/FWIW. > This and other RFCs are available on the web at > http://dev.perl.org/rfc/ > > =head1 TITLE > > Data: Superpositions > > =head1 VERSION > > Maintainer: Damian Conway <damian / conway.org> > Date: 14 September 2000 > Mailing List: perl6-language-data / perl.org > Number: 225 > Version: 1 > Status: Developing > > =head1 ABSTRACT > > This RFC (seriously) proposes Perl 6 provide C<any> and C<all> operators, > and, thereby, conjunctive and disjunctive superpositional types. > > =head1 DESCRIPTION > > The advantages and possibilities of superpositional programming were > demonstrated in well-received presentations at both YAPC'19100 and TPC 4.0. > > It is proposed that the C<any>, C<all>, and C<eigenstates> operators > proposed in those talks be added to Perl 6. Adding them to the core is > suggested because the use of superpositions changes the nature of > subroutine and operator invocations that have superpositions as > arguments. This is currently impossible to reproduce in a module. > Furthermore, the fundamental utility of being able to write: > > if (any(@value) < 10) { ... } > > or: > > die unless all(@tests)->($data); > > ought to be available to all Perl users. > > Inclusion in the core would also allow the current module-based pure Perl > implementation to be greatly optimized (perhaps even parallelized on suitable > SIMD or other multiprocessing platforms). > > A paper proposing the full semantics of superpositions (including their > effect when used as subroutine arguments and operator operands) will soon > be available from: > > http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/#Superpositions > > > =head1 MIGRATION ISSUES > > The <any> and <all> functions may collide with existing user-defined > or module-exported subroutine names. > > > =head1 IMPLEMENTATION > > See the Quantum::Superpositions module. > > > =head1 REFERENCES > > [1] Bohr, N., On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, Philosophical > Magazine, s.6, v.24, pp.1-25, 1913. > > [2] Einstein, A., «Ćer einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes > betreffenden heuristischen Gesichtspunkt ("On a Heuristic Viewpoint > Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light"), Annalen > der Physik, v.17, p.132-148, 1905. > > [3] Lewis, G.N., The Conservation of Photons, Nature, v.118(2), > pp.874-875, 1926. > > [4] Monroe, C., Meekhof, D.M., King, B.E., Itano, W.M. & Wineland, D.J. > Demonstration of a Fundamental Quantum Logic Gate, Phys. Rev. Lett. > v.75, pp.4714-4717, 1995. > > [7] Cirac, J.I. & Zoller P., Quantum Computations with Cold Trapped > Ions, Phys. Rev. Lett. v.74, pp.4091-4096, 1995. > > [8] Gershenfeld, N. & Chuang, I. L. Bulk Spin-resonance Quantum > Computation, Science v.275, pp.350-356, 1997. > > [9] Cory, D.G., Fahmy, A.F. & Havel, T.F., Ensemble Quantum > Computing by NMR Spectroscopy, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 94, > pp.1634-1639, 1997. > > [10] Deutsch, D. Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing Principle and the > Universal Quantum Computer, Proc. R. Soc. Lond., v.A400, > pp.97-117, 1985. > > [11] Deutsch, D. & Jozsa, R., Rapid Solution of Problems by Quantum > Computation, Proc. R. Soc. Lond., v.A439, pp. 553-558, 1992. > > [12] Shor, P. Algorithms for Quantum Computation: Discrete Logarithms > and Factoring, Proc. 35th Symp. on Found'ns of Computer Science, > pp. 124-134, 1994. > > [13] Grover, L.K., A Fast Quantum Mechanical Algorithm for Database > Search, Proc. 28'th ACM Symp. on the Theory of Computing, pp. > 212-219, 1996. > > [14] Wallace, J., Quantum Computer Simulators - A Review, Technical > Report 387, School of Engineering and Computer Science, University > of Exeter, June 1999. -- Conrad Schneiker (This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)