Is anyone else disappointed that Perl6 still seems to be more of a vague concept than reality?

I don't speak for anyone else who's actually done work to make Perl 6 a reality, but I sure wish we could have finished it for as little time and money and help we've had.

I wouldn't call that disappointment; it's more a sober realization of how few resources the project has ever had.

Okay, I just want to add, I think many people who use Perl, write small programs and scripts, and from the questions asked here, many of those struggle with seemingly simple tasks, like reading and writing to files, regular expressions, using a dbms engine with Perl, etc ...

Writing a compiler, a VM, designing a language, obviously needs a lot more background information and education that is probably not availble with many people

I think to even consider contributing to a language project, you have to read at least several books on automata theory, machine languages, infinite machine, compiler design. Books in those topics are usually huge and hard to read books and some of those topics requires background information themselves in certain types of math etc ... more reading, more big hard books

So I am sure finding educated people willing to contribute is hard, or maybe you guys are not promoting the project to the right type of people (the right type might be PhD students and academics)

Finally, maybe I am exagerating, maybe its not that hard, but to prove this, I think the project and the few resources working on it, may want to create documents what explain how people can easily aquire the skills necessary to contribute

I am willing to be believe that there is a simple and logical explanation to do it.

So maybe a year or two from now, you will have more people contributing throught a process of training!

from the questions asked here, many of those struggle with seemingly simple tasks, like reading and writing to files, regular expressions, using a dbms engine with Perl, etc ...

That is because most of the people who come here for the 1st (or 2nd) time, are absolute beginners. After they've asked the 1st question and received advice on how to go about digging up their own answers most people spend more time researching and then only post questions much later in their learning curve.

I'm willing to bet that if someone with the relevant access took a look at an aging analysis of the number of questions monks post, broken down by their level of "sophistication" (a very subjective term, I know), you would find the following (in an almost bell-curve distribution):

1st Post: a relatively naive question, showing absolute ignorance of perl, Perl, research ability, and posting technique/etiquette.

A large proportion of 1st time posters (a la Our very own Hot Dog vendor?) will never post a second post

2nd Post: (after a delay in time ... ) something still relatively clueless, but showing more evidence of research, and posted in a style more likely to invite constructive answers.

3rd + Post: Questions which become more indicative of an understanding of programming (specifically in perl) as opposed to merely stringing disconnected language elements together.

?? ++ Post: Not merely questions, but answers, as s/he grows more proficient.

Has any such analysis been done?

So Long
blackstarr

In the scheme of things, I wonder why a government like China or India doesn't see the bargain that lays before it and invest $3 million in getting it to a working level. With a pent-up labor force/population quite capable of using a great, free language, why not accelerate the birth of such a catalytic force?

Of course I also hoped that K&R were secretly writing D to replace C and kill off (the abortion called) C++, and that never happened either.

Unfortunately, as Perl6 flounders and seems like it will never happen, some people are jumping ship and going to lesser languages like Python. Sigh. Not me.

I have been involved in quite a few projects which never went anywhere because the TODO list kept growing (mostly due to management and sales sluts), making completion impossible. I could be wrong, but it seems like Perl6 may fall into this category, for different reasons.

Perl6 has the potential to be the language of the century, IMHO, but as long as it tries to be everything to everybody, it will never get done.

I could be wrong, but it seems like Perl6 may fall into this category, for different reasons.

I'll bite.

What reasons?

Feel free to refer to posts on p6l and p6i as well as status reports from Jesse Vincent, Luke Palmer, and Audrey Tang.

some people are jumping ship and going to lesser languages like Python.

Yes, I am one of those people it would seem. I dont want to start a flame war here, but, Perl 5's OO is simply no fun. Without real (logical) OO, it is difficult to sale Perl for extensive projects around my office. I have been Pythoning for the last couple of months and am growing fond of the language. Again, I do not want to start a flame war or be modded down for descenting, its just how things work in the real world. People around here are happy enough to use Perl 5 to 'script', but no one takes it seriously as a programming language capable of writing full scale programs that are extensible and maintainable. I do not fully share their view, but admit that it has its merits.

"Never take yourself too seriously, because everyone knows that fat birds dont fly" -FLC

its just how things work in the real world. People around here are happy enough to use Perl 5 to 'script', but no one takes it seriously as a programming language capable of writing full scale programs that are extensible and maintainable. I do not fully share their view, but admit that it has its merits.

Well, there are many examples in the real world that proof Perl 5's robustness, scalability and efficiency. IIRC the goal of Perl 6 is to provide these things in a much more powerful way that's more fitting the modern state of thought. I don't think it's primary goal is to "sell."

I've done large things in Perl 5 because it absolutely provides this possibilities. And regarding perl's age (how much is it again? 10 years?) and what it gives, I'd say the P6 development crew should take all the time they need. Especially because I'd really like 10years+ of Perl 6 when it's ready.

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Ordinary morality is for ordinary people. -- Aleister Crowley

There was a recent thread about this somewhere which mentioned how many hours a week (a lot) were being spent on it. My impression of that thread was that they are taking time to do it right.

However I also inferred (possibly faultily) that perl foundation like grants should be made, with industry or private support, to hire some of the top people on the project to work on it full time. I seem to remember that thread saying it could be done in 6 months if fully funded, while that may have been hyperbole, surely the perl community and Perl itself would benefit from more such grants.

It seems many people want Perl 6 now, is there anybody actively soliciting funding or is this in fact such a difficult problem, and needing much discussion of design decisions, that it just can't be speeded up no matter whether money is available or not?

I would just like to reply to myself for the record, I looked at the perl 6 mailing list (nicely linked from perl.com regularly) and saw the posts involved. It seems resources are lower than ideal but is clear from the thread that there are very sophisticated issues being considered, it is really still involving much theorization about what the language needs, and working out strategies, and so funding alone would not be sufficient. It is just a big, heroic job. Still however if there were funds they might indeed be put to good use.