Howdy!

That objection seems to be grounded in some ignorance (in the technical sense of simply not knowing).

It is not unheard of for a major version change to favor new/better features over backward compatibility. If I recall correctly, help with smoothing the path from Perl 5 to Perl 6 is part of the effort. Further, while there are significant changes and (one hopes) improvements in the upgrade, the language appears to look Perlish, much in the manner that a Mustang looks like a Mustang, even through multiple iterations of style. There are key elements that say "I'm a Mustang" or "I'm Perl".

Further, it is not clear that Perl 5 will die anytime soon. One can expect an extended period where both versions are being developed. People with considerable investments in Perl 5 code will tend to be reluctant to jump on the Perl 6 bandwagon right away. Others will simply be leery of change. There will probably remain a considerable mass of interest in Perl 5 for some time.

I'm grateful that Perl 6 is simply the next major version of Perl. Perl++ or Perl# would be Just Wrong. 6 is the next number after 5. Skipping to 16 would be another piece of "my version number is now bigger than yours" tomfoolery (Sybase, anyone?)

yours,
Michael

In reply to Re^3: What's wrong with Perl 6? by herveus
in thread What's wrong with Perl 6? by duff

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.