Perl 2007 might be optimistic anyway. {grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

It was the same for Windows 95, wasn't it? Or did some other popular software start the name-things-after-their-release-date fad?

Logically, the answer is simple. We'd have to name it 'Swine' (Perl before swine, after all)...

I noticed TheDamian's recent linux.conf.au 2006 talk in Dunedin was titled:

Sex *and* Violence: Technical and Social Lessons from the Perl 6 Development (or why Larry gets the colon and we should not have called it Perl 6)

I found two links describing the talk:

• talk abstract
• someone's jotted talk notes (note the damien mis-spelling in the link;-)

And then we can call our present Perl, Perl TOS!

TOS = The Original Series, for all you non-Trekkies out there.

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

I asked the same question many moons ago. It got some interesting replies.

Not sure, but ... is the difference between Perl5 and Perl6 really that much bigger than the one between Perl4 and Perl5 was? I think it's actually smaller, but that's just me.

is the difference between Perl5 and Perl6 really that much bigger than the one between Perl4 and Perl5 was?

Yes.

Much Perl 4 code still runs unmodified on Perl 5. While much of the internals changed, the language did not really change much. It got new features, but almost none of the existing language was changed.

Perl 6 code is always different from Perl 5 code. There is a different operator precedence table, operators themselves are different, it lacks some (deprecated) Perl 5 features, and even has a different vocabulary.

From 4 to 5, most of the source was rewritten. From 5 to 6, all will.

And it was about time.

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

You are and are not right. Yeah you can run Perl4 scripts by perl5 while you ... well, they all say you'll be able to run Perl5 scripts by perl6 ;-) But conceptually I think there was a huge gap between Perl4 and Perl5. You've got real references, real datastructures, real lexical variables, objects ... an improved shell became a fullblown general-purpose language. So yes, you'll get some new operators, you get different precedence (ack?!?), you get some more OO features, you get what non-perl-people call function prototypes, you get a brand new source tree, but ... well, it's hard to compare :-)

Jenda


Support Denmark! Defend the free world!

I agree with Jenda here, actually. Whether the code written for the older version runs on the newer one is not really the determining factor in my mind.

What counts is that idiomatic Perl 5 is very different from idiomatic Perl 4 in architecture, whereas idiomatic Perl 6 won’t be nearly as different from idiomatic Perl 5, at least in everyday code that does not strain against the limitations of Perl 5 too hard. Perl 4 was really more of a scriptable tool, whereas Perl 5 is a serious language.

Perl 6 does not really reform the way systems written in Perl are to be architectured, it just makes these architectures easier to implement by putting various and sundry premanufactured, well-designed nuts and bolts into the language, so you don’t have to spend so much time building them all yourself.

In syntax, it is a much bigger departure from Perl 5 than Perl 5 was from Perl 4; but in spirit, Perl 6 is much closer to Perl 5 than Perl 5 is to Perl 4.

Makeshifts last the longest.

im afraid i wasnt around for perl4, well i was around, but in school shorts ;), so i cant comment on how different it was.
In any case, maybe they has this same disscussion then as well.


This is not a Signature...

Or even this Vista - who have a horrible programming language called Vista-4GL.

--

Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree.
Your powers of persuasion will set them all free,
So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
(Missquoting Janis Joplin)

I'll throw this Vista into the ring as well.

Cheers,

Brent


-- Yeah, I'm a Delt.

You meant thisVista, too?

• Dromedary (one hump camels)
• Bactrian (two hump camels)
• Pteriidae (the Oysters that produce pearls with value)
• Nacre (mother-of-pearl)
• Black Perl
• Perl of Power (from D&D)
• PoP (Perl on Parrot)
• Perl RFC Forever (ala Duke Nukem)
• Marble Madness!! =:-)
• LAMPost
• P++

Considering that Perl6 will run Perl5 code directly, I don't think the very different moniker really works. Perl6 is the next version of Perl after Perl5 -- I don't see why it should be a different name.

Perl6 will run Perl5 code directly

The implementation of Perl 6 will probably have some heuristics for detecting Perl 5 code, and can (if compiled with support for it) invoke an (external or embedded) interpreter for it. However, the language Perl 6 is not compatible with Perl 5.

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }

I'd prefer my perl on the rocks.

And it looks like perl6 may leave us shaken AND stirred...

Perl on the Skids?

It's been done: Perl on Poles.

merlyn once suggested Perl on Planks.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Or, we could just call it "42".

But what’s the question?

Makeshifts last the longest.

How many robes must a camel put on ...

*chirping crickets*

What, it's being used already? Who knew?

Also, depending on the number of bugs in any given piece of code, it can be Good Juju, Bad Juju, or BAD Juju (goes either way to the extreme...inflection required for meaning). BAAAAAAAD Juju is the best, while "BAD JUJU!" is the worst.

PerlPants
Simply because resumes and job postings would become that much more amusing ...

PPerl
Who knows what that first "P" is...which adds one more letter to the mystery that is P E R L.

What
Nobody knows for certain anyway and it will be great fun in conversations.

Who knows what that first "P" is...which adds one more letter to the mystery that is P E R L.

exists, and the first "P" stands for persistent.

Juerd # { site => 'juerd.nl', plp_site => 'plp.juerd.nl', do_not_use => 'spamtrap' }