in reply to Perl to Ruby translator?

Ruby is a solidly crafted incarnation of proven stuff. It does not break any new ground, and probably doesn't want to. Perl6 is all about breaking new ground. No, I don't think it's going to be a monster. Closures probably seemed like a pretty outlandish feature at the time of their introduction too.

Larry and crew have gotten Perl 95% right five times in a row. I trust them to manage that feat again.

Makeshifts last the longest.

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Re: Re: Perl to Ruby translator?
by Elian (Parson) on Oct 11, 2003 at 01:41 UTC
    Perl 6 is almost entirely about not breaking new ground. There's nothing new or revolutionary in it--this is all well-travelled ground. (Granted, not by perl, but well-travelled nonetheless) All that's happening is we've stopped mining the '60s and '70s for features and have started in on the '80s...
[reply]
      Which is a better way to say what I meant. :) Perl5, Ruby, Python, and even more so the "real" (feh) languages like Java and C++ are all pretty well grounded on the '60s/'70s level. They're not new ground from a scientifical viewpoint, but '80s features will largely present new ground to people coding for a living.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

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      All that's happening is we've stopped mining the '60s

      <cough> Lisp? Macros? </cough> :-)

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Re^2: Perl to Ruby translator?
by adrianh (Chancellor) on Oct 11, 2003 at 19:44 UTC
    Perl6 is all about breaking new ground

    I'm curious. What new ground do you think Perl 6 is breaking? It's borrowing lots from other languages but I don't see anything really new.

    What makes Perl so great is its strategy of mugging any languages that happen to be walking past for anything that looks vaguely useful :-)

[reply]
      I got myself in a bind with that expression, didn't I? It's hard to explain, too. My point is along the lines that Perl6 is about trying to give features formerly considered "esoteric" to "code grunts". I wish I could outline it any clearer.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
      I'm curious. What new ground do you think Perl 6 is breaking? It's borrowing lots from other languages but I don't see anything really new.
      That's just it. Like perl5, it's borrowing all the great features from other languages, enhancing them, makeing them perlish, thus creating a cohesive and coherent, language (platform). Also, almost every perl5 feature is being continually improved, like the regex engine (you won't need flex/bison anymore). Then there are awsome hyperoperators, and generators ... complete programmer satisfaction ;)
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Re: Re: Perl to Ruby translator?
by perrin (Chancellor) on Oct 10, 2003 at 18:05 UTC
    I unerstand your point, but wow, closures are a huge ongoing source of confusion and bugs. If every new feature is as problematic as closures, we're in for a rough ride.
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      This may sound arrogant, but - to what level of programmers? I can count on the fingers of one hand (with several to spare) the number of times I got myself in a bind with closures. As the old adage goes, real programmers can write FORTRAN in every language - I doubt anyone who makes a mess with Perl would write clean and sophisticated code if just given another language.

      I don't want to close the post on that note; I understand your concern and know just taking the indoctrinated stance on this doesn't make the problems in practice go away. But in my experience trading expressiveness for simplicity does not pay off in the long run. ("Simplicity" is not quite the right word either.)

      Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
        People often don't realize that this is a closure:

        my $q = CGI->new()

sub foo {
    my $thing = $q->param('thing');
}

        [download]
        Then they try to use it in a persistent environment like mod_perl or FastCGI and they get screwed. I see this happen all the time.
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