in reply to From Perl 5.10 to Perl 6

But will it run on Perl 6 when it becomes the default Perl installation?
Unlikely (although promises have been made implementors of Perl6 will know how to run Perl5 as well - considering how hard it is to keep 'perl' running Perl5, I wouldn't want to bet that once Perl6 is available, it'll run all Perl5 code. Furthermore, which version of Perl5 will it run? 5.6, the version of Perl5 that was current when the Perl6 effort started? 5.8? 5.10? 5.12? And will that be just pure Perl, or will that include XS as well?

But it's certainly not the time to worry about it now. Perl6 hasn't been close to be production ready, and even when it's production ready, (Linux) distros have to pick them up, and then hosting companies have to start supporting them. Considering that after a year of 5.10 being available most hosting companies still offer 5.8 (or even 5.6), I wouldn't count on having to worry about Perl6 in the half dozen years. Some years ago, people tried to guess the Perl 6 release date. Most guessed dates have passed years ago.

Personally, I'd be surprised to see a useful perl6 out before 2015. And I wouldn't be surprised if I never have to code in perl6 because it either never gets finished, or it just won't catch on the say Perl5 did.

So, to sum up, I don't think it make any economical sense to spend time worry whether the code you write today will run on perl6. When (if) Perl6 comes around, your code has been rewritten for some other reason anyway.

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Re^2: From Perl 5.10 to Perl 6
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Dec 01, 2008 at 19:41 UTC
    Considering that after a year of 5.10 being available most hosting companies still offer 5.8 (or even 5.6), I wouldn't count on having to worry about Perl 6 in the half dozen years.

    I recommend basing your decisions only on what competent people do instead.

[reply]
      Well, I was just mimicing the sentiments of the OP. But as for 'competent' people, know of any major Perl shop that has moved from 5.8.x to 5.10? (With major I mean shops like Morgan Stanley, booking.com, MessageLabs, etc).

      I certainly don't.

[reply]

        5.10 is kind of a special case, because p5p can't seem to release software.

        I do consider anyone still doing new development with 5.6 incompetent. Likewise any version of Perl prior to 5.8.6.

        I realize that's harsh, but unless you have a support contract with ActiveState or Sun or HP or another vendor dedicated to fixing bugs and ensuring that new software works with old versions of Perl, you're exposing yourself to all kinds of risk -- and you're doing the community which develops Perl absolutely no favors.

[reply]

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