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> If that's changed, you should probably go update that. If that weren't against Wikipedia policies, I would. Then again, I don't consider Perl 5 "complete" e

> If that's changed, you should probably go update that. If that weren't against Wikipedia policies, I would. Then again, I don't consider Perl 5 "complete" either, whatever "complete" means. > There's no complete, finished implementation of the Perl 6 spec, right? Is the spec itself finished? No to both, but why does that matter? There'll be a Perl 6.1 spec and a Perl 6.2 spec and so on. Meanwhile, people who find a Perl 6 implementation usable for their purposes will use it and people who don't won't. Fortunately, every release is more usable to more people. As for "pre-release", I don't believe in playing linguistic existential games. Software exists or it doesn't. You've released it or you haven't. It does something or it doesn't. Perpetual betas and alphas and pre-releases and unstable versions and (even) release candidates are for people who lack the courage to release good software. As for "perceived slights", insinuating that Perl 6 doesn't exist or isn't useful because the spec isn't "complete" (whatever that means) or no single implementation is "finished" (whatever that means) or no one has said "This particular release of this particular implementation is stable for every domain and every purpose and everyone who might ever want to use it" is awfully silly and (in my mind) deserves a challenge.

philwelch 16y ago
You're being evasive, which is equal parts amusing and irritating. Maybe Perl 6 is an exercise in deconstructing the concept of a software product ever being done? As long as the official language specification refers to Perl 6 in the future tense, I will as well. Take it up with Larry Wall. For those of us who don't play linguistic existential games, BTW, Perl 5 has been "done" since 1994. I think most of us recognize that you can continue maintaining and updating software after it's done/finished/released. It appears the Perl 6 community has been innovative in the discovery that you can release software before it's done or finished and go Derrida on someone's ass for implying that an incomplete implementation of a draft specification is, in fact, incomplete.
- perigrin 16y ago
  And yet, the fine people on p5p keep making changes to something you're trying to claim is "done". You suggest elsewhere that "done"ness is a 100% thing. If Perl5 keeps changing, and it was 100% done in 1994 ... something is really inconsistent with the universe. chromatic's pedantry is a symptom of people like us ignoring the fact that even a language like TeX will only be done when the author decides it's done (Knuth's death for example). That and he's a grumpy-butt sometimes. Perl6 is a fully-functional language in that you can write useful (for some value of useful) scripts in it. The specification is undergoing radical changes, but then as I've pointed out the Perl5 specification is undergoing changes that some consider "radical" (if you doubt this, read threads on perl5-porters sometime ... look up the debate(s) about the "feature" pragma). Valid complaints about Rakudo being an unfinished implementation of Perl6 are better centered around things like it doesn't pass 100% of the Spec tests yet. The Rakudo developers will (I'm pretty sure) own up to this, and point to the fact that they're working hard on it and that patches are welcome. That doesn't mean that Rakudo * was in some way "Pre Release". I don't recall anybody using the term "Pre" when talking about the Rakudo * release. The terms I remember are "early", "useful", "useable","for developers". If we as non-members of the Perl6 community go about continuing to imply that Perl6 is somehow less than released in a way for developers to generate useful and usable applications, we're gonna have the grumpier members of the Perl6 community call us on it. It looks to me like you have a unique opportunity to contribute most effectively to Perl6 moving from being what you consider pre-Released to Released. You can submit a doc patch to change the tense in the Perl6 documentation.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    I did say, "I think most of us recognize that you can continue maintaining and updating software after it's done/finished/released." Whether a software project is release-quality or not is a rather basic concept to everyone else. It can be intellectually tempting to try and deconstruct these basic concepts, but more often than not it's an exercise in evasion rather than illumination. Perl 6 (or Perl 6.0.0 for the pedantic) is a work in progress--at some point in the near future, the spec and implementations will be "done" to a point where everyone will agree that this is Perl 6.0.0, every implementation that matches the spec and passes the tests is Perl 6.0.0, and work will begin on Perl 6.1. Perl 5.0.0 reached that state in the past--16 years or so in the past to be precise. There's a distinction here that's dishonest to evade. If the Perl 6 community is more interested in using linguistic evasion and deconstructing the concept of the finished release more than they're interested in actually making a finished release though, I'd best leave it to them. Maybe this is what Larry Wall meant about the postmodernism. Who knows? My mind is still blown by the observation that you have to doubletalk your way around the idea that Perl 6 hasn't reached 6.0.0 final yet.
    - chromatic 16y ago
      It can be intellectually tempting to try and deconstruct these basic concepts.... I'd like to see a unified theory of version numbers while you're at it. It'd be nice to account for Ubuntu, OpenBSD, Mplayer, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, the Linux kernel, and TeX at minimum. After that, care to decipher what "beta" or "alpha" or "pre-release" means? If the Perl 6 community is more interested in using linguistic evasion.... I'd take your argument at all seriously if it were more honest, say either "I don't believe any implementation of Perl 6 will ever meet the 6.0.0 spec" or "It shouldn't have taken ten years to release Rakudo Star." Those are debatable positions. Arguing "But it doesn't really exist because you didn't releeeeeeease-release a fiiiiiinished-finished version!" is precisely the epistemological-linguistic ticky tackery you claim to decry. Even so, it matters not at all in the real world because there will be a new release next month and the month after that and the month after that ad utilitarian, and you're welcome to use it at any point when it's useful to you.

philwelch 16y ago

You're being evasive, which is equal parts amusing and irritating. Maybe Perl 6 is an exercise in deconstructing the concept of a software product ever being done? As long as the official language specification refers to Perl 6 in the future tense, I will as well. Take it up with Larry Wall. For those of us who don't play linguistic existential games, BTW, Perl 5 has been "done" since 1994. I think most of us recognize that you can continue maintaining and updating software after it's done/finished/released. It appears the Perl 6 community has been innovative in the discovery that you can release software before it's done or finished and go Derrida on someone's ass for implying that an incomplete implementation of a draft specification is, in fact, incomplete.

perigrin 16y ago
And yet, the fine people on p5p keep making changes to something you're trying to claim is "done". You suggest elsewhere that "done"ness is a 100% thing. If Perl5 keeps changing, and it was 100% done in 1994 ... something is really inconsistent with the universe. chromatic's pedantry is a symptom of people like us ignoring the fact that even a language like TeX will only be done when the author decides it's done (Knuth's death for example). That and he's a grumpy-butt sometimes. Perl6 is a fully-functional language in that you can write useful (for some value of useful) scripts in it. The specification is undergoing radical changes, but then as I've pointed out the Perl5 specification is undergoing changes that some consider "radical" (if you doubt this, read threads on perl5-porters sometime ... look up the debate(s) about the "feature" pragma). Valid complaints about Rakudo being an unfinished implementation of Perl6 are better centered around things like it doesn't pass 100% of the Spec tests yet. The Rakudo developers will (I'm pretty sure) own up to this, and point to the fact that they're working hard on it and that patches are welcome. That doesn't mean that Rakudo * was in some way "Pre Release". I don't recall anybody using the term "Pre" when talking about the Rakudo * release. The terms I remember are "early", "useful", "useable","for developers". If we as non-members of the Perl6 community go about continuing to imply that Perl6 is somehow less than released in a way for developers to generate useful and usable applications, we're gonna have the grumpier members of the Perl6 community call us on it. It looks to me like you have a unique opportunity to contribute most effectively to Perl6 moving from being what you consider pre-Released to Released. You can submit a doc patch to change the tense in the Perl6 documentation.
- philwelch 16y ago
  I did say, "I think most of us recognize that you can continue maintaining and updating software after it's done/finished/released." Whether a software project is release-quality or not is a rather basic concept to everyone else. It can be intellectually tempting to try and deconstruct these basic concepts, but more often than not it's an exercise in evasion rather than illumination. Perl 6 (or Perl 6.0.0 for the pedantic) is a work in progress--at some point in the near future, the spec and implementations will be "done" to a point where everyone will agree that this is Perl 6.0.0, every implementation that matches the spec and passes the tests is Perl 6.0.0, and work will begin on Perl 6.1. Perl 5.0.0 reached that state in the past--16 years or so in the past to be precise. There's a distinction here that's dishonest to evade. If the Perl 6 community is more interested in using linguistic evasion and deconstructing the concept of the finished release more than they're interested in actually making a finished release though, I'd best leave it to them. Maybe this is what Larry Wall meant about the postmodernism. Who knows? My mind is still blown by the observation that you have to doubletalk your way around the idea that Perl 6 hasn't reached 6.0.0 final yet.
  - chromatic 16y ago
    It can be intellectually tempting to try and deconstruct these basic concepts.... I'd like to see a unified theory of version numbers while you're at it. It'd be nice to account for Ubuntu, OpenBSD, Mplayer, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, the Linux kernel, and TeX at minimum. After that, care to decipher what "beta" or "alpha" or "pre-release" means? If the Perl 6 community is more interested in using linguistic evasion.... I'd take your argument at all seriously if it were more honest, say either "I don't believe any implementation of Perl 6 will ever meet the 6.0.0 spec" or "It shouldn't have taken ten years to release Rakudo Star." Those are debatable positions. Arguing "But it doesn't really exist because you didn't releeeeeeease-release a fiiiiiinished-finished version!" is precisely the epistemological-linguistic ticky tackery you claim to decry. Even so, it matters not at all in the real world because there will be a new release next month and the month after that and the month after that ad utilitarian, and you're welcome to use it at any point when it's useful to you.