Recently, particle admitted that, "i have changed my regular expression style significantly as of late. my list of reasons includes ... preparing for perl 6."

This seems like a great idea for someone in my position.

Like anyone else, I've been following the Apocalypse and Exegesis articles with baited breath. On the one hand, changes to regular expressions are fascinating and exciting - but on the other hand, the changes are a bit intimidating and scary. (I think that if you aren't intimidated by the group discussions linked from "this week on perl6", then you're probably one of the folks that is involved in the discussion - or should be! I'm neither.)

Being excited and intimidated by a language is all fine and well - so far, I've been stoking my excitement, and damping my intimidation by hoping for a whole slew of "Introducing Perl 6" books from our favorite publisher. But what would really help me is to be able to actually *do* something.

For me, doing something really has a limited meaning. I don't have a copy of the current parrot and Perl6 cvs repositories; I don't have a Perl6 sandbox (much as I would like to see an article on how to set one up: are there any?) to scratch around in. Chances are I won't write a lick of Perl6 code until it's available here.

So, since reading the first Apocalypse, I've been waiting with trepidation: when Perl6 comes out, I'll most likely suffer from cognitive dissonance. That is, I'll find myself saying, "Sheesh, I know how to get this program running in Perl 5 syntax... why don't it work in Perl6?".

(Yes, I've heard that there will be parsers to convert from Perl5 code to Perl6 code - and yes, I've heard that there'll be a lot of backwards compatibility between Perl6 and Perl5 syntax. But honestly, I don't want to continue to speak Latin, knowing that people can translate it into Spanish. I don't want to continue to speak Latin, knowing that many Spaniards can understand me. I wanna learn the new language, and thereby express myself how I want to.)

I've been sitting back and fretting: "Oh dear, once Perl6 comes out, it'll be 2 months before I can write any code again...". particle has changed how ve writes regular expressions. This is such a good idea that I'm going to do the same. Sure, it'll be more work for me right now to change how I write regexes - but the change isn't all that major. It'll be one less unfamiliar thing to deal with when Perl6 comes.

So, monks, my question to you: how are you preparing for The Apocalypse? How do you intend to avoid cognitive dissonance?

blyman
setenv EXINIT 'set noai ts=2'

  • Comment on Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse
by hossman (Prior) on Oct 25, 2002 at 22:09 UTC
    So, monks, my question to you: how are you preparing for The Apocalypse?

    I'm hoarding lots of colons.

[reply]
      I'm setting up a training facility to train people to type '.' instead of '->'
[reply]
Re: Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse
by l2kashe (Deacon) on Oct 27, 2002 at 04:20 UTC

    Short answer: Nothing

    Personally I stepped back from following the apocalypses, for reasons similar to your reasons for not playing with Perl6 yet. I.e no sandbox, (I program in perl therefor I must too lazy to set one up :) ), etc.. I'm also a sysadmin, and am daily banging out perl5 code. I don't want to corrupt my mental perl5 namespace with perl6 syntax just yet, and I am anal enough that I'd go back through all my code updating it to be as compliant as possible. Frankly I don't have that time to spend, so I'm not even going to tempt myself.

    That doesn't mean I'm not excited about it, or even disinterested. I'm simply appreciating Larry and company's magic from afar, and once its stable and bless'd you can be sure I'll be hacking away.

    P.s I'm scared of some of those discussions too, so you aren't alone on that note :)

    /* And the Creator, against his better judgement, wrote mankind.c */

[reply]
Re: Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse
by jdporter (Paladin) on Oct 26, 2002 at 18:55 UTC
    ...with baited breath.

    It's "bated", not "baited". cf. abate.

    </digression>

[reply]

      Ah! But maybe he'd had sprat's for lunch! 8^o

      Nah! Your thinking of Simon Templar, originally played by Roger Moore and later by Ian Ogilvy
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse
by greenFox (Vicar) on Oct 27, 2002 at 23:01 UTC

    I tend to think of Perl 6 being "in the future" so aside from reading the Apocalypse's and Exegesis's (and being suitably impressed!) I haven't been too concerned about "learning" the language. Where I work Perl 5.005_03 is still being run on most of the servers so even when there is a Perl 6 stable release it will probably be a year or more before we catch up.

    I suspect the transition will be painless for those of us not living on the bleeding edge - there will be a flurry of "and if you are running Perl 6 you would write it like this..." and "why doesn't this code work under Perl 6" type posts and in the usual superb Monastery fashion the masses will be educated :)

    --
    Life is a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. William Shakespeare, Macbeth

[reply]
Re: Cognitive dissonance and The Apocalypse
by BUU (Prior) on Oct 26, 2002 at 23:40 UTC
    Alright alright. This thread has gotten quite silly. This was supposed to be a proper, respectable thread about perl 6, and now it's all silly. Take it from the top again.
[reply]
      Did you mean from the top or over the top?
[reply]

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