4 ms·

I was a huge fan of Perl from the early 2000's, in large part because the community around it was eclectic and helpful. Perl was ugly and useful and for a long

I was a huge fan of Perl from the early 2000's, in large part because the community around it was eclectic and helpful. Perl was ugly and useful and for a long time the easiest way to get things done if you were dealing with random stuff from the web. My business (Pinboard) runs on a perl5 backend. The over-decade-long transition to Perl 6 has not only alienated me from wanting to do more development in the language, but made me look like an idiot back in 2002 when I championed Perl 6 to my bosses as the wave of the future. In my opinion, getting rid of the main appeal of the language ("it just works") was a suicidal move. I admire and respect Larry Wall, but I am not going near this language again. At this point, it feels more like a religious cult than a tool to get things done.

xref 7y ago
Why is it that Perl (apparently) didn’t survive the transition from 5->6, but after years of acrimony Python looks like it will survive the 2->3 transition?
- cygx 7y ago
  Perl6 was a reaction to Perl5's loss of mindshare, but it took a very long time to arrive and still cannot be used as a drop-in replacement for the latter. It has rather different strengths and weaknesses and thus has to find a new niche to live in.
  - microtherion 7y ago
    > Perl6 was a reaction to Perl5's loss of mindshare That's not the way I remember it. The Perl 6 effort was announced in 2000, and (at least by the ever-fickle TIOBE index), Perl marketshare kept growing until 2003 and did not start declining until 2005: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/
    - raiph 7y ago
      The GP spoke of mindshare. Marketshare shifts frequently lag shifts in mindshare by years. Some Perl fora had started to become hostile by 1999. It had clearly begun to lose core talent and something needed to be done about that.
      - microtherion 7y ago
        There was plenty of hostility in 1996, too. By 2000, certainly some people decided something needed to be done about the hostility, but I don't recall "core talent" leaving over it.
        raiph 7y ago
        Maybe I'm wrong. My memory is too hazy on it partly because I was just an outsider looking in. I know some "important people" quit p5p, but could well believe they didn't quit the community. [1] [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/05/p5pdigest/THISWEEK-20000507.html/#Moderation_is_Imminent https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/05/p5pdigest/THISWEEK-20000507...
    - cygx 7y ago
      By that time, Amazon for example had already decided that Perl's time had passed. Another case in point, look at the Google trend for "perl tutorial"[1]. Unfortunately, that only starts at 2004, but you can still see by that metric, Perl popularity already was in sharp decline when Tiobe still had it fluctuating around a peak. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=perl%20tutorial https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=p...
    - idlewords 7y ago
      It took a while to realize how great the distance would be between perl 5 and perl 6, and how far off into hyperspace the latter would go.
- cutler 7y ago
  Data science libraries and adoption by teaching institutions.
- striking 7y ago
  2to3 works and forward/backward compatibility was handled very well.
  - skolsuper 7y ago
    It really wasn't, but I suppose it clears the low, low bar of perl 5/6
- akavi 7y ago
  Perl was already dying by the time 6 came around. Python was on the upswing when Python 3 came around.
- b2gills 7y ago
  Fairly early in the life of Perl6 it was basically decided there wasn't going to be a transition. Not like the Python one at least. Also I've heard about projects that transitioned from Python2 right to Go. (The way it sounded, it was easier for them than transitioning to Python3.) --- Perl6 isn't trying to replace any language. Why does everyone think this has to be a zero-sum game? C++ didn't replace C. D and C# didn't replace C++ or C. Ruby didn't replace Perl. C didn't even replace Assembly. There is a long list of languages that didn't replace other languages. I mean even Cobol is still an actively used language. --- Also I think it is dumb that Python didn't copy Perl and make all of those changes work in a backward compatible way. (I have yet to see a change in Python3 that isn't reminiscent of one I've seen in Perl5.)
xorcist 7y ago
> The over-decade-long transition to Perl 6 Is it really a transition, though? Perl6 looks to me more like an unrelated language bootstrapping from the Perl5 ecosystem. It's certainly more different from Perl5 than something like Ruby. The biggest mistake with Perl6 was probably to have "Perl" as part of its name. "Rakudo" might have proven more popular from the start. At least it would have gotten rid of all the pointless and altogether predictable discussions.
raiph 7y ago
> In my opinion, getting rid of the main appeal of the language ("it just works") was a suicidal move. No one ever got rid of that -- P5 still just works and P6 aims to be as practical -- so I'm quite confused by this aspect of your comment.
- idlewords 7y ago
  One of Larry Wall's nice insights was that a language includes the community around it, just as much as the core features or standard library. So when the charismatic founder of the language and his chief apostles moved on to a different project, that had a real impact on people. Not least, it sent the message that the 'old' perl was a legacy dead end.
  - raiph 7y ago
    I hear that's what many saw, the message they got. And it's clear many still see and hear the same. And that had and continues to have a real impact. But to do Larry justice it's important to acknowledge that he specifically did not move onto a different project. He was pushed by the Perl community to start on a new version of Perl and he did so. He then dedicated a large chunk of the next two decades of his life to it, to Perl, and continues to do so, despite misunderstandings like the ones you're expressing and outright hostility from some in the Perl community. And all this while arguably he's done the best thing that could be done for Perl. In 2000 he said: > We have to be better, not just get there faster. ... We are determined to do the right thing by everyone. To this we pledge our lives When asked in 2018 "Why didn't you pick something different?" he said: [2] > Because I wanted to go to a Perl conference. I didn't want to go to a Perl and something else conference. > You guys are Perl people. All of you. > You know at the beginning we thought that [Perl 5 and Perl 6] might be a little closer together and they did diverge a little more than than we thought they would but by and large you know I think of Perl not as a particular syntax or engine but as a a set of philosophies of language design that you don't find any anywhere else in any other language. And both Perl 5 and Perl 6 follow those philosophies so on that level they are very closely related languages. They're both how I think. > And the third leg of that is you know one can look back and say well you know maybe it would have helped the marketing of Perl 6 if it had had a different name but I'm not sure that it would have helped the marketing of Perl 5 to have a different name from Perl 6. I don't think that Perl 6 really stole any mindshare from Perl 5 at all. [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wJNPOs-Q20&t=44m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wJNPOs-Q20&t=44m

xref 7y ago

Why is it that Perl (apparently) didn’t survive the transition from 5->6, but after years of acrimony Python looks like it will survive the 2->3 transition?

cygx 7y ago
Perl6 was a reaction to Perl5's loss of mindshare, but it took a very long time to arrive and still cannot be used as a drop-in replacement for the latter. It has rather different strengths and weaknesses and thus has to find a new niche to live in.
- microtherion 7y ago
  > Perl6 was a reaction to Perl5's loss of mindshare That's not the way I remember it. The Perl 6 effort was announced in 2000, and (at least by the ever-fickle TIOBE index), Perl marketshare kept growing until 2003 and did not start declining until 2005: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/
  - raiph 7y ago
    The GP spoke of mindshare. Marketshare shifts frequently lag shifts in mindshare by years. Some Perl fora had started to become hostile by 1999. It had clearly begun to lose core talent and something needed to be done about that.
    - microtherion 7y ago
      There was plenty of hostility in 1996, too. By 2000, certainly some people decided something needed to be done about the hostility, but I don't recall "core talent" leaving over it.
      - raiph 7y ago
        Maybe I'm wrong. My memory is too hazy on it partly because I was just an outsider looking in. I know some "important people" quit p5p, but could well believe they didn't quit the community. [1] [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/05/p5pdigest/THISWEEK-20000507.html/#Moderation_is_Imminent https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/05/p5pdigest/THISWEEK-20000507...
  - cygx 7y ago
    By that time, Amazon for example had already decided that Perl's time had passed. Another case in point, look at the Google trend for "perl tutorial"[1]. Unfortunately, that only starts at 2004, but you can still see by that metric, Perl popularity already was in sharp decline when Tiobe still had it fluctuating around a peak. [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=perl%20tutorial https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=p...
  - idlewords 7y ago
    It took a while to realize how great the distance would be between perl 5 and perl 6, and how far off into hyperspace the latter would go.
cutler 7y ago
Data science libraries and adoption by teaching institutions.
striking 7y ago
2to3 works and forward/backward compatibility was handled very well.
- skolsuper 7y ago
  It really wasn't, but I suppose it clears the low, low bar of perl 5/6
akavi 7y ago
Perl was already dying by the time 6 came around. Python was on the upswing when Python 3 came around.
b2gills 7y ago
Fairly early in the life of Perl6 it was basically decided there wasn't going to be a transition. Not like the Python one at least. Also I've heard about projects that transitioned from Python2 right to Go. (The way it sounded, it was easier for them than transitioning to Python3.) --- Perl6 isn't trying to replace any language. Why does everyone think this has to be a zero-sum game? C++ didn't replace C. D and C# didn't replace C++ or C. Ruby didn't replace Perl. C didn't even replace Assembly. There is a long list of languages that didn't replace other languages. I mean even Cobol is still an actively used language. --- Also I think it is dumb that Python didn't copy Perl and make all of those changes work in a backward compatible way. (I have yet to see a change in Python3 that isn't reminiscent of one I've seen in Perl5.)

xorcist 7y ago

> The over-decade-long transition to Perl 6 Is it really a transition, though? Perl6 looks to me more like an unrelated language bootstrapping from the Perl5 ecosystem. It's certainly more different from Perl5 than something like Ruby. The biggest mistake with Perl6 was probably to have "Perl" as part of its name. "Rakudo" might have proven more popular from the start. At least it would have gotten rid of all the pointless and altogether predictable discussions.

raiph 7y ago

> In my opinion, getting rid of the main appeal of the language ("it just works") was a suicidal move. No one ever got rid of that -- P5 still just works and P6 aims to be as practical -- so I'm quite confused by this aspect of your comment.

idlewords 7y ago
One of Larry Wall's nice insights was that a language includes the community around it, just as much as the core features or standard library. So when the charismatic founder of the language and his chief apostles moved on to a different project, that had a real impact on people. Not least, it sent the message that the 'old' perl was a legacy dead end.
- raiph 7y ago
  I hear that's what many saw, the message they got. And it's clear many still see and hear the same. And that had and continues to have a real impact. But to do Larry justice it's important to acknowledge that he specifically did not move onto a different project. He was pushed by the Perl community to start on a new version of Perl and he did so. He then dedicated a large chunk of the next two decades of his life to it, to Perl, and continues to do so, despite misunderstandings like the ones you're expressing and outright hostility from some in the Perl community. And all this while arguably he's done the best thing that could be done for Perl. In 2000 he said: > We have to be better, not just get there faster. ... We are determined to do the right thing by everyone. To this we pledge our lives When asked in 2018 "Why didn't you pick something different?" he said: [2] > Because I wanted to go to a Perl conference. I didn't want to go to a Perl and something else conference. > You guys are Perl people. All of you. > You know at the beginning we thought that [Perl 5 and Perl 6] might be a little closer together and they did diverge a little more than than we thought they would but by and large you know I think of Perl not as a particular syntax or engine but as a a set of philosophies of language design that you don't find any anywhere else in any other language. And both Perl 5 and Perl 6 follow those philosophies so on that level they are very closely related languages. They're both how I think. > And the third leg of that is you know one can look back and say well you know maybe it would have helped the marketing of Perl 6 if it had had a different name but I'm not sure that it would have helped the marketing of Perl 5 to have a different name from Perl 6. I don't think that Perl 6 really stole any mindshare from Perl 5 at all. [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wJNPOs-Q20&t=44m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wJNPOs-Q20&t=44m