4 ms·

What an artificial distinction to make! Perl 5 exists as it is for the sake of backwards compatibility. Very few misfeatures suffer deprecation, few deprecati

What an artificial distinction to make! Perl 5 exists as it is for the sake of backwards compatibility. Very few misfeatures suffer deprecation, few deprecations experience removal, and almost any code example you can find as far back as 1987 runs unmodified on Perl 5.13.x (whichever monthly release is the most recent). I also find it difficult to compare language features between Python and Ruby or Perl when neither Python nor Ruby can get lexical scoping right. That seems like a very basic principle of language design. Update: I forgot to write that Perl 6 is the Perl version which explores improvements in the core language.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
My point is that Perl 5 is still the most recent released version of Perl. Perl 6 is somewhere on the horizon (out there with Java 1.6 and C++ 0x). Even if Perl 6 gets released tomorrow, then what? Another decade and a half until Perl 7? Nobody's going to wait around another 30 or 45 years for Perl to become the language it was meant to be, they'll move on long before then, if they haven't already.
- chromatic 16y ago
  Rakudo Star's third release is today. (I'm not going to argue any silly pseudo-intellectual ontological rebuttal of "oh but it's not really a release!" because other people have no trouble building productive things with Rakudo, like they've done for the other two releases of Rakudo Star and the other thirty three releases of Rakudo.)
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Does it support all of the perl6 spec?
    - draegtun 16y ago
      Seems to support the vast majority of the spec: http://rakudo.de/ http://rakudo.de/ (something like 85% to 90% to my naked eye as at July). And according to Rakudo status page (http://rakudo.org/status http://rakudo.org/status) below are the common things that don't quite work yet: * big integers * nested package/grammar/class declarations * typed arrays and attributes * state variables * multi-level wrapping * macros * threads/concurrency * longest-token matching * :dba adverb in regexes So it is pretty usable... enough that even a static blogging app has been writen in Rakudo: http://strangelyconsistent.org/blog/dog-food-with-a-distinct-perl6-flavor http://strangelyconsistent.org/blog/dog-food-with-a-distinct...
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        It may be usable, but my point was: you can't call something "complete" when it doesn't implement its own spec. Imagine telling your boss "Look, I've released this thing three times now! I know it's just now doing 85-90% of what you asked, but still, what is your problem?!".
        draegtun 16y ago
        The Rakudo developers have never said that Rakudo Star was a complete implementation of the Perl 6 spec. They called it a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6 (http://rakudo.org/node/75 http://rakudo.org/node/75). Anyway I'm a "glass is half full" type of person and I view the 85-90% has a good thing (and I think the "boss", ie. Larry Wall would agree :)
        brunov 16y ago
        When the spec itself is as feature rich as Perl 6 is, having an 80% complete implementation still accounts for a very usable, very feature rich language to play with and implement useful programs in.
        chromatic 16y ago
        It may be usable, but my point was... ... a silly pseudo-intellectual ontological rebuttal of "oh but it's not really a release!" Are you suggesting there's a better approach to develop software than incremental delivery and design changes based on feedback from real users? That contradicts the experience of the people developing Perl 6, but I'm sure many of us would entertain contrary-but-concrete evidence.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Looks like my post really touched a nerve given your totally over the top characterization of it. >Are you suggesting ... No, I'm suggesting that when someone complains that they still can't use perl 6 after all these years it's dishonest and overly defensive to try and claim that an 80% release that's apparently been released multiple times makes their complaint a complaint of ignorance. A more honest approach would be to respond "well, that's true but we're working on it and you can help by using what we have so far".
- phaylon 16y ago
  And Perl 5 will stay the most recently released version of Perl 5 (note the number). Perl 5 and Perl 6 are different languages of the same family. They forked roads but drive in the same direction.
lelele 16y ago
> Perl 5 exists as it is for the sake of backwards compatibility. This is really says it all: a language, just like any software, develops when issues are fixed without breaking existing code. What's so ugly with having a language version declaration on top of a file, or something better? Why I can link any language to C and still I'm not able to use different versions of the very same language at once? Having newcomers wrestle with ancient issues is not progress, IMO.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

My point is that Perl 5 is still the most recent released version of Perl. Perl 6 is somewhere on the horizon (out there with Java 1.6 and C++ 0x). Even if Perl 6 gets released tomorrow, then what? Another decade and a half until Perl 7? Nobody's going to wait around another 30 or 45 years for Perl to become the language it was meant to be, they'll move on long before then, if they haven't already.

chromatic 16y ago
Rakudo Star's third release is today. (I'm not going to argue any silly pseudo-intellectual ontological rebuttal of "oh but it's not really a release!" because other people have no trouble building productive things with Rakudo, like they've done for the other two releases of Rakudo Star and the other thirty three releases of Rakudo.)
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Does it support all of the perl6 spec?
  - draegtun 16y ago
    Seems to support the vast majority of the spec: http://rakudo.de/ http://rakudo.de/ (something like 85% to 90% to my naked eye as at July). And according to Rakudo status page (http://rakudo.org/status http://rakudo.org/status) below are the common things that don't quite work yet: * big integers * nested package/grammar/class declarations * typed arrays and attributes * state variables * multi-level wrapping * macros * threads/concurrency * longest-token matching * :dba adverb in regexes So it is pretty usable... enough that even a static blogging app has been writen in Rakudo: http://strangelyconsistent.org/blog/dog-food-with-a-distinct-perl6-flavor http://strangelyconsistent.org/blog/dog-food-with-a-distinct...
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      It may be usable, but my point was: you can't call something "complete" when it doesn't implement its own spec. Imagine telling your boss "Look, I've released this thing three times now! I know it's just now doing 85-90% of what you asked, but still, what is your problem?!".
      - draegtun 16y ago
        The Rakudo developers have never said that Rakudo Star was a complete implementation of the Perl 6 spec. They called it a useful, usable, "early adopter" distribution of Perl 6 (http://rakudo.org/node/75 http://rakudo.org/node/75). Anyway I'm a "glass is half full" type of person and I view the 85-90% has a good thing (and I think the "boss", ie. Larry Wall would agree :)
      - brunov 16y ago
        When the spec itself is as feature rich as Perl 6 is, having an 80% complete implementation still accounts for a very usable, very feature rich language to play with and implement useful programs in.
      - chromatic 16y ago
        It may be usable, but my point was... ... a silly pseudo-intellectual ontological rebuttal of "oh but it's not really a release!" Are you suggesting there's a better approach to develop software than incremental delivery and design changes based on feedback from real users? That contradicts the experience of the people developing Perl 6, but I'm sure many of us would entertain contrary-but-concrete evidence.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Looks like my post really touched a nerve given your totally over the top characterization of it. >Are you suggesting ... No, I'm suggesting that when someone complains that they still can't use perl 6 after all these years it's dishonest and overly defensive to try and claim that an 80% release that's apparently been released multiple times makes their complaint a complaint of ignorance. A more honest approach would be to respond "well, that's true but we're working on it and you can help by using what we have so far".
phaylon 16y ago
And Perl 5 will stay the most recently released version of Perl 5 (note the number). Perl 5 and Perl 6 are different languages of the same family. They forked roads but drive in the same direction.

lelele 16y ago

> Perl 5 exists as it is for the sake of backwards compatibility. This is really says it all: a language, just like any software, develops when issues are fixed without breaking existing code. What's so ugly with having a language version declaration on top of a file, or something better? Why I can link any language to C and still I'm not able to use different versions of the very same language at once? Having newcomers wrestle with ancient issues is not progress, IMO.