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If you think merely rebranding something will make it more acceptable, then perhaps you've found the real reason people don't like Perl: it is a language that a

by Retra 7y ago

If you think merely rebranding something will make it more acceptable, then perhaps you've found the real reason people don't like Perl: it is a language that appears to be built around the superficial. Like someone who takes 30 mins crafting their bed hair in an effort to prove they don't care about appearances.

microwavecamera 7y ago
> then perhaps you've found the real reason people don't like Perl: it is a language that appears to be built around the superficial How so? That's an odd statement without citation or clarification. If anything the opposite is true. It's become a trend in the industry to let superficial attitudes shape popular opinion. You're not "cool" if you use languages like Perl and PHP. You're supposed to criticize Perl even if you never used it or even understand it. The idea that Perl 6 should be called something else isn't because of the superficiality of Perl but of popular misconceptions and misguided opinions erroneously excepted as truisms in the tech community. Perl 6 is not a the next "version" of Perl 5. It's a completely different language but because it's still called "Perl" people tend to dismiss it out of hand. That and it's confusing to call it "Perl 6" when it isn't related to Perl 5 and doesn't even share a codebase with Perl 5.
- Retra 7y ago
  >It's become a trend in the industry to let superficial attitudes shape popular opinion. Well, yeah. Popular opinion is always a trend, and it always follows superficial attitudes. That's basically a tautology. The question is why do you care? Why complain about being unpopular if you don't want to follow trends? If Perl were popular, it would be just as trendy to praise it. And just as counter-trendy to denounce it as over-sold. People have perfectly rational reasons to use languages that are popular. If Perl is not popular, it has to offer something else. Is it as fast as C? As portable as JavaScript? As flexible as C++? As well-funded as Java? As easy to use as Python? These 'popular' languages are also heavily criticized. JavaScript could be the worst language in the world, and it would survive all that criticism because browser compatibility is important. What does Perl offer? Look at the landing page at https://www.perl.org/ https://www.perl.org/ "It's old and does stuff! That's why we love it!" Who cares about that? The language basically bills itself with no more than "This is a programming language, but with different syntax!"
b2gills 7y ago
It only appears superficial because you have only looked at the surface of it. Perl6 brings together features from many languages, but makes them feel as if they have always belonged together. Imagine writing Haskell and C code in the same line. If Perl6 had just copied the syntax of the originators of those features verbatim, it would feel very disjointed. It instead feels very natural and fluid. gather loop ( my Int $i = 0 ; ; $i += 2 ) { take $i } The above line is a generator for an infinite sequence of even numbers, but uses the C-style `for` loop to do it. --- When major features get brought into Perl6 they are rarely copied exactly. That applies both to the syntax and the functionality of the feature. If the feature doesn't compose with other language features, or doesn't mesh syntactically, it will be redesigned until it does. (We don't want non-Perl6-ish features.) When I was new to Perl6 I would often try to combine features together to try and break the syntax/compiler/runtime. Eventually I got tired of that because it almost always worked the first time exactly how I would expect it to. (A wizard will eventually see magical things as being mundane because he sees them day-in and day-out.)

by Retra 7y ago

microwavecamera 7y ago

> then perhaps you've found the real reason people don't like Perl: it is a language that appears to be built around the superficial How so? That's an odd statement without citation or clarification. If anything the opposite is true. It's become a trend in the industry to let superficial attitudes shape popular opinion. You're not "cool" if you use languages like Perl and PHP. You're supposed to criticize Perl even if you never used it or even understand it. The idea that Perl 6 should be called something else isn't because of the superficiality of Perl but of popular misconceptions and misguided opinions erroneously excepted as truisms in the tech community. Perl 6 is not a the next "version" of Perl 5. It's a completely different language but because it's still called "Perl" people tend to dismiss it out of hand. That and it's confusing to call it "Perl 6" when it isn't related to Perl 5 and doesn't even share a codebase with Perl 5.

Retra 7y ago
>It's become a trend in the industry to let superficial attitudes shape popular opinion. Well, yeah. Popular opinion is always a trend, and it always follows superficial attitudes. That's basically a tautology. The question is why do you care? Why complain about being unpopular if you don't want to follow trends? If Perl were popular, it would be just as trendy to praise it. And just as counter-trendy to denounce it as over-sold. People have perfectly rational reasons to use languages that are popular. If Perl is not popular, it has to offer something else. Is it as fast as C? As portable as JavaScript? As flexible as C++? As well-funded as Java? As easy to use as Python? These 'popular' languages are also heavily criticized. JavaScript could be the worst language in the world, and it would survive all that criticism because browser compatibility is important. What does Perl offer? Look at the landing page at https://www.perl.org/ https://www.perl.org/ "It's old and does stuff! That's why we love it!" Who cares about that? The language basically bills itself with no more than "This is a programming language, but with different syntax!"

b2gills 7y ago

It only appears superficial because you have only looked at the surface of it. Perl6 brings together features from many languages, but makes them feel as if they have always belonged together. Imagine writing Haskell and C code in the same line. If Perl6 had just copied the syntax of the originators of those features verbatim, it would feel very disjointed. It instead feels very natural and fluid. gather loop ( my Int $i = 0 ; ; $i += 2 ) { take $i } The above line is a generator for an infinite sequence of even numbers, but uses the C-style `for` loop to do it. --- When major features get brought into Perl6 they are rarely copied exactly. That applies both to the syntax and the functionality of the feature. If the feature doesn't compose with other language features, or doesn't mesh syntactically, it will be redesigned until it does. (We don't want non-Perl6-ish features.) When I was new to Perl6 I would often try to combine features together to try and break the syntax/compiler/runtime. Eventually I got tired of that because it almost always worked the first time exactly how I would expect it to. (A wizard will eventually see magical things as being mundane because he sees them day-in and day-out.)