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There's a lot of equivalent old warts in Perl that haven't been fixed This is the crux of the issue. Serious language users (especially the ones writing the n

There's a lot of equivalent old warts in Perl that haven't been fixed This is the crux of the issue. Serious language users (especially the ones writing the new libraries that add significant value to your platform) want the warts fixed to make the environment pleasant to work in. Meanwhile, most casual users are desperate for backward compatibility because it makes distribution easier. I actually prefer Python's choice, but pain is inevitable either way.

avar 16y ago
I should have said: They haven't been fixed by default. Perl is also moving forward, it's just doing so differently than Python. Python has major releases like 2.6 and 3.0 where they explicitly break old code in the default installation. Perl however doesn't break any of the old warts by default, but developers can easily do so by importing modules like Moose and perl5i in their own code. See http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Moose http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Moose and http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?perl5i http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?perl5i Perl's model means that you can usually upgrade any code base from say 5.6 to 5.12 without major headaches. But if you try to do the equivalent with Python 1.6 to 3.0 you'll run into trouble. There are advantages to both models, but with Perl's you rarely see users with big legacy code bases staying behind on some legacy 10 year old release of Perl that may have bugs and security issues. Users usually just upgrade along with their OS without any major pains.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  Which code was explicitly broken by Python 2.6?
  - SapphireSun 16y ago
    iirc nothing was, but it made available some features that would be used in 3.0 and 2.7 is essentially a back-port of stuff the 3.0 people found useful. I believe the idea is that in a major version number, everything is back compatible.
- baq 16y ago
  > Perl is also moving forward, it's just doing so differently than Python. Python has major releases like 2.6 and 3.0 where they explicitly break old code in the default installation. 3.0 yes, but 2.6 is simply not true. code written for 2.2 will work in 2.6, bugs notwithstanding.
  - jedbrown 16y ago
    Almost, "with" became a keyword.

avar 16y ago

I should have said: They haven't been fixed by default. Perl is also moving forward, it's just doing so differently than Python. Python has major releases like 2.6 and 3.0 where they explicitly break old code in the default installation. Perl however doesn't break any of the old warts by default, but developers can easily do so by importing modules like Moose and perl5i in their own code. See http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Moose http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Moose and http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?perl5i http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?perl5i Perl's model means that you can usually upgrade any code base from say 5.6 to 5.12 without major headaches. But if you try to do the equivalent with Python 1.6 to 3.0 you'll run into trouble. There are advantages to both models, but with Perl's you rarely see users with big legacy code bases staying behind on some legacy 10 year old release of Perl that may have bugs and security issues. Users usually just upgrade along with their OS without any major pains.

jacobolus 16y ago
Which code was explicitly broken by Python 2.6?
- SapphireSun 16y ago
  iirc nothing was, but it made available some features that would be used in 3.0 and 2.7 is essentially a back-port of stuff the 3.0 people found useful. I believe the idea is that in a major version number, everything is back compatible.
baq 16y ago
> Perl is also moving forward, it's just doing so differently than Python. Python has major releases like 2.6 and 3.0 where they explicitly break old code in the default installation. 3.0 yes, but 2.6 is simply not true. code written for 2.2 will work in 2.6, bugs notwithstanding.
- jedbrown 16y ago
  Almost, "with" became a keyword.