That's a clever analogy (to the "Homer"), and it stuck in my mind too, however, upon closer inspection it doesn't really hold water. Homer designed "The Homer".

That's a clever analogy (to the "Homer"), and it stuck in my mind too, however, upon closer inspection it doesn't really hold water. Homer designed "The Homer". Herb expressly told the engineers not to tell him what Homer was asking of them -- just to do it. With Perl 6 that's not so. Larry and Company are a group of very smart, talented, and dedicated developers who are working daily to create exactly what they think will make an awesome programming language... (and that's after extensive (an understatement) experience with Perl 5). Anyway, thank you for the great reply. My hunch is that both languages will probably be "fun to drive" (in their own ways), though, how long it takes you to learn to drive it, and what you can do with it once you're out on the open road, may vary. Edit: built Perl 6 (erm, Parrot and Rakudo) and tried it out at a very elementary level. Planning on putting a few hours into Arc this weekend.