4 ms·

Perl 6 was never meant to 'kill' perl 5. It's a completely separate language, has been from the beginning, and it's been renamed Raku recently. Unlike with pyt

Perl 6 was never meant to 'kill' perl 5. It's a completely separate language, has been from the beginning, and it's been renamed Raku recently. Unlike with python, perl devs realized even 20 years ago people realized there was too much legacy perl 5 code for 'replacement' to be practical. The result is that perl 5 is very backwards compatible, Raku is at the very least an interesting language worthy of some attention. Compare this to Python 2/3. It's basically an incompatible fork that doesn't add enough for many projects to consider upgrades, and adds the overhead of having to worry about two version. All it really accomplished was guarantee that "Python 4" will never, EVER be a thing.

pvg 6y ago
The more accurate thing would be to say it ended up killing all perl, which is something the Python 2/3 transition hasn't done to Python, warts an all.
- wheresmycraisin 6y ago
  Go ahead and run "sudo rm /usr/bin/perl" on all your servers then and tell me what happens.
  - oblio 6y ago
    I'm reasonably sure a big distro recently removed Perl from the base install.
    - wheresmycraisin 6y ago
      Which one?
      - pvg 6y ago
        What difference could that make? There are lots of languages shipped in various distributions that are no longer 'living' languages in the sense that they have little mindshare and little new development is done in them. Perl wasn't one of those languages and now it is. If you want to comment on that or perhaps dispute it, sure. But the 'delete perl and see what happens' thing is beside-the-point nitpickery.
        wheresmycraisin 6y ago
        Perl has "little mindshare" and "little new development" in the same way as Bash. It's there, people who understand unix will reach for it when it's appropriate and it's as indispensable. I want to know which distro removed perl because that's quite a drastic step and am interested in studying it. Sorry if that offends you.
        pvg 6y ago
        It doesn't offend me, it just isn't related to the point I was making. You replied to me as if that sort of test is relevant and I don't think it is. The analogy to bash is similarly not suitable for this kind of argument - bash has never had any ambition to be a general purpose programming language, perl very much did. Unfortunately for perl, perl's own efforts in that regard pretty much eliminated the possibility of that ever happening. Python's trajectory hasn't been that, even with the travails of the 2/3 transition. 'look at how perl did things!' is just a really strange approach in a discussion about the Python 2/3 thing. That operation was successful, the patient died.
        wheresmycraisin 6y ago
        You might as well tell anyone who deals with "legacy" software or any software over 10-20 years old to kill themselves, too.
      - oblio 6y ago
        https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-perl-on-redhat-8 https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-perl-on-redhat-8 Biggest of them all. I can't find the announcement.
lizmat 6y ago
Perl 6 *was* to be the next version of Perl. That was the intent when the whole effort started in 2000. That it didn't turn out that way, has many causes. Enough has been said about that already. But to say that it was a completely separate language from the beginning, is historically incorrect in my opinion.
- wheresmycraisin 6y ago
  I disagree. Perl 6 changed fundamental low level syntax and semantics in the language. The 4 -> 5 transition in contrast was mostly syntax compatible, and in fact Perl 4 scripts are our there in the wild running on the Perl 5 interpreter just fine. Yes, it should've been called "Larry's next crazy experiment language" from the start. The most that was ever promised about the 5->6 transition was that there'd be ways of using 5 modules in 6 (which more or less works for 'pure-perl' 5 modules, within reason).
  - lizmat 6y ago
    Agree that it did change low level syntax. What was promised initially was that a "use v5" in a lexical scope, would switch to a Perl 5 compatible parser. This project was started, but became pre-empted by the Inline::Perl5 module, which now allows you to use 99.9% of CPAN's Perl 5 modules (even with XS components) seamlessly in Raku. And yes, that is stable enough to be used in production.
  - raiph 6y ago
    Fwiw I agree with both you and Liz. As Larry put it the day he announced it:[1] > It is our belief that if Perl culture is designed right, Perl will be able to evolve into the language we need 20 years from now. It’s also our belief that only a radical rethinking of both the Perl language and its implementation can energize the community in the long run. > (which more or less works for 'pure-perl' 5 modules, within reason) Are you misunderstanding what has been achieved? Using the "Best First" view of replies to the 2008 PerlMonks question What defines "Pure Perl"?[2] > "Pure Perl" refers to not using the C-extensions ("XS") and thus, not requiring a working C compiler setup. Inline::Perl lets Raku code use Perl modules as if they were Raku modules. XS or pure perl.[3] Not all of course. Some make no sense whatsoever in Raku (eg source filters). Some don't yet work but could if someone cared to deal with issues that arise. But if you're thinking that Rakudo only imports pure perl modules for the above definition of "pure perl", please know that Rakudo is light years ahead of that due to niner's amazing work. And if you mean some other definition of "pure perl" it would help me if you shared it. :) [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ [2] https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=709757 https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=709757 [3] https://raku.land/cpan:NINE/Inline::Perl5 https://raku.land/cpan:NINE/Inline::Perl5

pvg 6y ago

The more accurate thing would be to say it ended up killing all perl, which is something the Python 2/3 transition hasn't done to Python, warts an all.

wheresmycraisin 6y ago
Go ahead and run "sudo rm /usr/bin/perl" on all your servers then and tell me what happens.
- oblio 6y ago
  I'm reasonably sure a big distro recently removed Perl from the base install.
  - wheresmycraisin 6y ago
    Which one?
    - pvg 6y ago
      What difference could that make? There are lots of languages shipped in various distributions that are no longer 'living' languages in the sense that they have little mindshare and little new development is done in them. Perl wasn't one of those languages and now it is. If you want to comment on that or perhaps dispute it, sure. But the 'delete perl and see what happens' thing is beside-the-point nitpickery.
      - wheresmycraisin 6y ago
        Perl has "little mindshare" and "little new development" in the same way as Bash. It's there, people who understand unix will reach for it when it's appropriate and it's as indispensable. I want to know which distro removed perl because that's quite a drastic step and am interested in studying it. Sorry if that offends you.
        pvg 6y ago
        It doesn't offend me, it just isn't related to the point I was making. You replied to me as if that sort of test is relevant and I don't think it is. The analogy to bash is similarly not suitable for this kind of argument - bash has never had any ambition to be a general purpose programming language, perl very much did. Unfortunately for perl, perl's own efforts in that regard pretty much eliminated the possibility of that ever happening. Python's trajectory hasn't been that, even with the travails of the 2/3 transition. 'look at how perl did things!' is just a really strange approach in a discussion about the Python 2/3 thing. That operation was successful, the patient died.
        wheresmycraisin 6y ago
        You might as well tell anyone who deals with "legacy" software or any software over 10-20 years old to kill themselves, too.
    - oblio 6y ago
      https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-perl-on-redhat-8 https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-perl-on-redhat-8 Biggest of them all. I can't find the announcement.

lizmat 6y ago

Perl 6 *was* to be the next version of Perl. That was the intent when the whole effort started in 2000. That it didn't turn out that way, has many causes. Enough has been said about that already. But to say that it was a completely separate language from the beginning, is historically incorrect in my opinion.

wheresmycraisin 6y ago
I disagree. Perl 6 changed fundamental low level syntax and semantics in the language. The 4 -> 5 transition in contrast was mostly syntax compatible, and in fact Perl 4 scripts are our there in the wild running on the Perl 5 interpreter just fine. Yes, it should've been called "Larry's next crazy experiment language" from the start. The most that was ever promised about the 5->6 transition was that there'd be ways of using 5 modules in 6 (which more or less works for 'pure-perl' 5 modules, within reason).
- lizmat 6y ago
  Agree that it did change low level syntax. What was promised initially was that a "use v5" in a lexical scope, would switch to a Perl 5 compatible parser. This project was started, but became pre-empted by the Inline::Perl5 module, which now allows you to use 99.9% of CPAN's Perl 5 modules (even with XS components) seamlessly in Raku. And yes, that is stable enough to be used in production.
- raiph 6y ago
  Fwiw I agree with both you and Liz. As Larry put it the day he announced it:[1] > It is our belief that if Perl culture is designed right, Perl will be able to evolve into the language we need 20 years from now. It’s also our belief that only a radical rethinking of both the Perl language and its implementation can energize the community in the long run. > (which more or less works for 'pure-perl' 5 modules, within reason) Are you misunderstanding what has been achieved? Using the "Best First" view of replies to the 2008 PerlMonks question What defines "Pure Perl"?[2] > "Pure Perl" refers to not using the C-extensions ("XS") and thus, not requiring a working C compiler setup. Inline::Perl lets Raku code use Perl modules as if they were Raku modules. XS or pure perl.[3] Not all of course. Some make no sense whatsoever in Raku (eg source filters). Some don't yet work but could if someone cared to deal with issues that arise. But if you're thinking that Rakudo only imports pure perl modules for the above definition of "pure perl", please know that Rakudo is light years ahead of that due to niner's amazing work. And if you mean some other definition of "pure perl" it would help me if you shared it. :) [1] https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/23/soto2000.html/ [2] https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=709757 https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=709757 [3] https://raku.land/cpan:NINE/Inline::Perl5 https://raku.land/cpan:NINE/Inline::Perl5