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Re^4: Reference in Perl 6
by pmichaud (Scribe) on Aug 19, 2010 at 17:50 UTC
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But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that.
Moritz mentions this in another posting, but I want to emphatically reaffirm: I did not define or call Perl 5 an "ugly, complex, or rough" language, I said there are others who think that way about Perl 5. I encounter such folks quite frequently at (non-Perl) conferences and events.
When I show these folks what we're doing with Perl 6, they often become interested in Perl again (or for the first time). And when I say that "Perl 5 has adopted many of these Perl 6 concepts as well", they start to reconsider what they think and say about Perl 5, too.
Once again, an Anonymous Monk posts a knee-jerk response without examining what was actually written. (I know I should not be surprised at this.)
We'll see how strong Perl 6 holds out against Perl 5 when they are in competition in the real world.
This statement again seems to presuppose that Perl 5 and Perl 6 are locked in some sort of competition against each other, and that there can be only one winner. As I said in my original post, I categorically reject the notion of a competition (other than a friendly and mutually-supportive one) between the two. I'm a person who likes and uses both Perl 5 and Perl 6; as far as I can tell having multiple tools to solve problems works just fine for me, and I suspect it will work just fine for others as well.
Pm
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Re^4: Reference in Perl 6
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Aug 19, 2010 at 06:00 UTC
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But what you define as a "ugly, complex, or otherwise has too many rough edges" language has managed to survive nearly 17 years of evolution with millions of users and its maker took probably just 3 years to build it.
You're neglecting the ten years Perl 5 has had to borrow ideas from Perl 6. Like the modern Perl testing culture? Thank Perl 6. (Don't believe me? Read the documentation of Test::Builder sometime.)
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Like the modern Perl testing culture? Thank Perl 6.
Are you suggesting we wouldn't have the "modern testing culture" if there hadn't been a Perl6? Are we to believe that testing, which started with version 1.0.0 and which continued to evolve ever since, would have stopped developing in 2000?
Man, you sound like those people claiming the race to the moon was worthwhile because it gave us Velcro and a pen to write upside down with. As if we wouldn't have had Velcro or something similar otherwise. Or that didn't pencils allow us the write upside down for a long time already.
I'm not denying Perl has borrowed from Perl6. Just as it has been borrowing from other languages since its birth. But without Perl6, Perl would have borrowed elsewhere. Or the ideas first raised on a Perl6 mailinglist would have raised somewhere else in the Perl world and found its way into Perl.
Would Perl be where it's now (5.12.1) without Perl6? Unlikely. Would it have progressed equally well the past decade without Perl6?† I believe that to be likely. Would it have progressed even more if some of the resources now spend on Perl6 had been spend in Perl? Seems logical to me.
†For instance, Perl may have had a switch statement, and/or a smart match operator, if there hadn't been Perl6. It may not have been called given/when, and smart match is likely to have worked differently.
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Are you suggesting we wouldn't have the "modern testing culture" if there hadn't been a Perl 6?
No. I meant exactly what I wrote. The testing culture Perl has now is due to Perl 6. The Perl QA group began life as the Perl 6 QA group.
Even if I did have a time machine and the power to create parallel universes, I have no interest in running the kind of experiments necessary to prove that Perl 5 would have eventually stumbled into something equally good (if different) or better without the existence of Perl 6. You're welcome to speculate as much as you want, but it doesn't matter.
It's foolish to pretend that Perl 5 hasn't borrowed liberally from Perl 6, from simple features such as say to larger features such as Moose (though Perl 6 isn't the only influence there) and smart match, and even to development practices.
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But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that. Or at least by their very own definition until they have proven Perl 6 is just not that after a couple of year use.
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But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that. Or at least by their very own definition until they have proven Perl 6 is just not that after a couple of year use.
I find statements like this weird. It seems to presuppose that "Perl 5 people" and "Perl 6 people" are mutually exclusive. What gives "Perl 6 people" the right to call Perl 5 ugly, complex, etc. is that they've used Perl 5 for perhaps years already. "Perl 6 people" are "Perl 5 people" just dissatisfied with the status quo.
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But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that.
No one needs permission to admit that the Perl 5 dereferencing syntax is ugly, or the special case of variables $main::a and $main::b is inconsistent, or the divergence in return values between system and every other system call, or the typeglob aliasing syntax, or the action at a distance of superglobals (and which ones are in main by default and which aren't?).
Perl 5 has its warts. One goal of Perl 6 is to invent new mistakes.
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Re^4: Reference in Perl 6
by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Aug 19, 2010 at 03:15 UTC
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Perl is 23 years old this December. Perl 5 as we know it today took close to 15 years. Perl 5 at all took 7 years.
Perl 6 will sink or swim. If you don't like Perl 6, don't get involved. If you do like it and think it's going badly, COGTFO.
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