Is there a way to use only precompiled modules

Question

I wonder if is possible to have only precompiled modules or some sort of MoarVM bytecode. The idea is to protect the source code at some grade - at least i don't want to be in plain text

Bauer

Answer 1

Not at the moment. But the design of how CompUnit repositories work, makes that entirely possible. It's just that nobody has been willing to put in the work to make that happen. And it is on my (very long) todo list.

Apart from protecting source code (which may actually be a little more futile when the RakuAST branch lands), I was more thinking of the situation of running Raku on a very small processor with little memory (think RaspBerry and the like), which would make it nice if it would be able to load (binary) modules on demand over the network (without the source).

Shipway

I don't think RakuAST will make much difference as currently conceived; it's a compile-time representation, and will be erased by the point we reach bytecode. – Staciestack

Actually I think that RakuAST will make it harder to get the original source code because it will enable more macro-y code. – Cunctation

@Bauer This question seems to pertain to "source code protection". @ Liz Isn't the source code 'protected' in Alexandr's recently-released Podlite.app, written in Raku? github.com/zag/podlite-desktop/releases – Hookah

Is Podlite written in Raku? – Shipway

Great question, @ElizabethMattijsen. l should have double-checked before commenting. I figured it was written in Raku since you featured it in your blog ( rakudoweekly.blog/2021/05/10/2021-19-out-of-beta-pod ), but it's apparently written in Typescript (per Github metrics). See right sidebar: github.com/zag/podlite-desktop . – Hookah