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Not only that, but the threat of a non-backwards compatible upgrade being just around the corner is a major point against picking up Perl at this time, and the

Not only that, but the threat of a non-backwards compatible upgrade being just around the corner is a major point against picking up Perl at this time, and the uncertain release time frame of Perl 6 makes that not exactly an attractive choice for a language to learn.

thomas11 16y ago
Perl 6 is not really an upgrade, except in the most general sense. It's a new Perlish language, and Perl 5 will have a long and happy life besides Perl 6, even when (if?) the latter is used in production.
mst 16y ago
perl6 is a separate language designed by some of the same people. I'm a perl5 hacker at heart and intend to continue to be. The latest version of perl5 is version 12.3, released rather recently. The websites for both languages now make this clear, but we'll probably need to rename them both to "-something- perl" for people to stop being confused by the names. Maybe in the next year or so.
- darkandbrooding 16y ago
  The Zope community experienced similar (self inflicted) branding damage with Zope 3. The goal of Zope 3 was to build a next-generation rapid app development toolkit, incorporating lessons learned over the life of Zope 2. This is perfectly laudable goal, but developers heard "zope" and thought they could leverage existing knowledge, best practices, and tools. Then they learned that "zope 2" products wouldn't work under zope 3. Then they learned how much they would have to unlearn from one project to the other. Then they gnashed their terrible teeth, and roared their terrible roars, and finally the zope 3 developers got the message and renamed their framework "Bluebream." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBream ) As someone who worked at a shop that migrated from python/Zope to java/hibernate/GWT during the "zope 3 WTF?" days, I can attest that the confusion created by poor naming choices, and the lack of clarity in product roadmaps, was indeed a factor in deciding to migrate entirely away from Zope.
sigzero 16y ago
Perl is to Perl6 as VB6 is to VB.NET. Some things generally look the same but they are different languages.

thomas11 16y ago

Perl 6 is not really an upgrade, except in the most general sense. It's a new Perlish language, and Perl 5 will have a long and happy life besides Perl 6, even when (if?) the latter is used in production.

mst 16y ago

perl6 is a separate language designed by some of the same people. I'm a perl5 hacker at heart and intend to continue to be. The latest version of perl5 is version 12.3, released rather recently. The websites for both languages now make this clear, but we'll probably need to rename them both to "-something- perl" for people to stop being confused by the names. Maybe in the next year or so.

darkandbrooding 16y ago
The Zope community experienced similar (self inflicted) branding damage with Zope 3. The goal of Zope 3 was to build a next-generation rapid app development toolkit, incorporating lessons learned over the life of Zope 2. This is perfectly laudable goal, but developers heard "zope" and thought they could leverage existing knowledge, best practices, and tools. Then they learned that "zope 2" products wouldn't work under zope 3. Then they learned how much they would have to unlearn from one project to the other. Then they gnashed their terrible teeth, and roared their terrible roars, and finally the zope 3 developers got the message and renamed their framework "Bluebream." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBream ) As someone who worked at a shop that migrated from python/Zope to java/hibernate/GWT during the "zope 3 WTF?" days, I can attest that the confusion created by poor naming choices, and the lack of clarity in product roadmaps, was indeed a factor in deciding to migrate entirely away from Zope.

sigzero 16y ago

Perl is to Perl6 as VB6 is to VB.NET. Some things generally look the same but they are different languages.