Esteemed monks,

It seems to me that this is sort of a mess, though understandable and, in the end, good for us. True, a perl programmer beginning now will be in a tight spot, but backwards compatibility is a must. Also, we need to move forward and keep up with the best technology.

Unfortunately, sitting still in a permanent code freeze isn't a viable option. There are plenty of things we'd all like to see fixed, and Perl6 is just another attempt at this. As the code changes, we keep up. Being able to tag code as being perl5 is a nice feature, however, when we just can't get Stuff to work.

If you're new to Perl, I'd say start with 6. There are plenty of us around to help you with perl5 integration should it become a necessity. In a couple of years, 6 will be the norm. In a few years, most of the old perl5 code won't be used anymore except in legacy systems.

This, of course, is just my opinion.

Peace monks,