5 ms·

Should have chosen a different name for the language.

yesbut 9y ago
I feel that there should probably be a name change, but ultimately I don't really care. I am enjoying the language and they can call it whatever they want. If and when they change the name I will just refer to it as the new name.
petre 9y ago
There were numerous discussions about this and it was decided against it. Eventually one would use Perl 5 from inside Perl 6 with the "use v5" statement.
- vgy7ujm 9y ago
  If this really had worked seamlessly it would be great. But that includes /usr/bin/perl working this way on every OS etc... with a clear&easy upgrade path for existing code.
  - petre 9y ago
    Well Perl 5 needs a spec in order to be supported inside Perl 5. Otherwise which version do you support? 5.6? 5.10.1? 5.16?
- cthor 9y ago
  Clarification: Decided by the Perl 6 devs who want to keep the name and don't seem to care about the damage that decision does to Perl 5
  - petre 9y ago
    One of the discussion was on the Perl blogs[1]. Most of the devs there are Perl 5 devs and they also decided against the name change. Perl 6 is the next iteration of Perl that has been redesigned from the ground up. Why should it bare a different name? Yes, the redesign took more than a decade and it's incompatible with Perl 5, but so is Python 3.6 compared to 2.7, albeit to a lesser extent. Even Perl 5.26 has changed a lot since 5.6. In fact the least common denominator is 5.10.1. Using older versions is discouraged since they're largely unsupported by the majority of CPAN modules. 1. http://blogs.perl.org http://blogs.perl.org
    - cthor 9y ago
      The most recent discussion I saw on this subject[1] makes it very clear that there isn't a consensus. If there is, it's in the "Perl 6 should rename" direction. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/7r1b33/an_open_letter_to_the_perl_community/ https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/7r1b33/an_open_letter...
    - vorg 9y ago
      > Yes, the redesign took more than a decade Quite true! In fact, the redesign took more than a decade and a half (July 2000 to Dec 2015). A record worth breaking!
  - virtualsue 9y ago
    It was a decision made by Larry Wall alone.Since it’s his language, he’s allowed to do that.
corpMaverick 9y ago
A new name would have kept momentum in Perl 5 and it would have made Perl 6 more sexy. It is sad, Perl is amazing, I still use it as my personal scripting language. Back in the day I wrote complete enterprise applications.
sampo 9y ago
> Should have chosen a different name for the language. I wonder if Fortran 2008 wasn't called Fortran, could it be sold to computer science people as a "fast, type-checked matlab".
emmelaich 9y ago
What ... like Ruby? :-) Perl6 has some compatibility -- at the wetware level. Which is not nothing.

I feel that there should probably be a name change, but ultimately I don't really care. I am enjoying the language and they can call it whatever they want. If and when they change the name I will just refer to it as the new name.

petre 9y ago

There were numerous discussions about this and it was decided against it. Eventually one would use Perl 5 from inside Perl 6 with the "use v5" statement.

vgy7ujm 9y ago
If this really had worked seamlessly it would be great. But that includes /usr/bin/perl working this way on every OS etc... with a clear&easy upgrade path for existing code.
- petre 9y ago
  Well Perl 5 needs a spec in order to be supported inside Perl 5. Otherwise which version do you support? 5.6? 5.10.1? 5.16?
cthor 9y ago
Clarification: Decided by the Perl 6 devs who want to keep the name and don't seem to care about the damage that decision does to Perl 5
- petre 9y ago
  One of the discussion was on the Perl blogs[1]. Most of the devs there are Perl 5 devs and they also decided against the name change. Perl 6 is the next iteration of Perl that has been redesigned from the ground up. Why should it bare a different name? Yes, the redesign took more than a decade and it's incompatible with Perl 5, but so is Python 3.6 compared to 2.7, albeit to a lesser extent. Even Perl 5.26 has changed a lot since 5.6. In fact the least common denominator is 5.10.1. Using older versions is discouraged since they're largely unsupported by the majority of CPAN modules. 1. http://blogs.perl.org http://blogs.perl.org
  - cthor 9y ago
    The most recent discussion I saw on this subject[1] makes it very clear that there isn't a consensus. If there is, it's in the "Perl 6 should rename" direction. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/7r1b33/an_open_letter_to_the_perl_community/ https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/7r1b33/an_open_letter...
  - vorg 9y ago
    > Yes, the redesign took more than a decade Quite true! In fact, the redesign took more than a decade and a half (July 2000 to Dec 2015). A record worth breaking!
- virtualsue 9y ago
  It was a decision made by Larry Wall alone.Since it’s his language, he’s allowed to do that.

corpMaverick 9y ago

A new name would have kept momentum in Perl 5 and it would have made Perl 6 more sexy. It is sad, Perl is amazing, I still use it as my personal scripting language. Back in the day I wrote complete enterprise applications.

sampo 9y ago

> Should have chosen a different name for the language. I wonder if Fortran 2008 wasn't called Fortran, could it be sold to computer science people as a "fast, type-checked matlab".

emmelaich 9y ago

What ... like Ruby? :-) Perl6 has some compatibility -- at the wetware level. Which is not nothing.