Perl 6

tswall has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Oh Glorious, Esteemed and Enlightened Monks!

I dearly hope I do not offend anybody with what may well be a question that quickly exposes my naivete with things Perl.

I have recently embarked on my journey to Perl enlightenment, and I am curious about the state of Perl 6. I have looked over (what I think is) the official Perl 6 website and the Wikipedia entry. I also did a quick PerlMonks search of the topic and found a small handful of hits the most recent of which was posted way back in 2005. This seems odd to me as I would have guessed there would be a reasonable level of enthusiasm for the general state of this ongoing effort.

My question is really what IS the state of Perl 6? I am wondering if I should be spending significant effort learning Perl 6 or leave it alone, let it mature, and work on my Perl 5.x.x foo. I have a reasonable amount of ruby and python experience, and my general understanding is that part of the Perl 6 plan is to adopt some ideas from such languages (revamped object models and such?). So the idea of focusing on learning the next generation of Perl that might feel a little more familiar has some appeal.

Also, I understand there are a couple of different development implementations of Perl 6...Rakudo/Parrot and Pugs. Is this in fact the case? And is there a reason to work with one or the other?

Many, many happy regards, or wonderous Monks!
Scott

Comment on Perl 6

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl 6 by zentara (Cardinal) on Feb 28, 2009 at 14:27 UTC
Like bloodnok, I observe......dont hold your breathe waiting for Perl6 If you want to learn Perl, jump into Perl5 now.....there is alot of Perl5 legacy code that will do you well to understand, and Perl6 will have a Perl5 compatibility mode, so no need to wait. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth My Petition to the Great Cosmic Conciousness	[reply]
Re: Perl 6 by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Feb 28, 2009 at 16:35 UTC
Perl6 might be a little early yet, but you should definitely closely-study the `Moose` (and `MooseX` and `Mouse`) packages on CPAN. Now. You can, within the context of Perl5, do a lot of important and useful things much easier than you could do before. The overhead is very-acceptable in most cases, IMHO, and the productivity gains to you are quite substantial. It's “a better moose-trap.” `;-)` (Anyway, a heck of a power-tool, not to be overlooked as I almost did.)
Re: Perl 6 by Bloodnok (Vicar) on Feb 28, 2009 at 14:07 UTC
Personally speaking, I have no intention (yet) of looking @ perl 6 since none in my client base has even mentioned it (a few of the luddites haven't even heard of it!!). In fact the greater majority haven't yet gone and in most cases don't intend to (for one reason or another) go, to or even beyond, 5.8!! A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))	[reply]
Re: Perl 6 by misterwhipple (Monk) on Feb 28, 2009 at 16:29 UTC
Have a look at Perl 6 FAQ at Programmer's Heaven. -- Your left-hand veeblefetzer is calibrated to the wrong frammistan coefficient. Pass me that finklegruber.	[reply]
Re: Perl 6 by cosmicperl (Chaplain) on Feb 28, 2009 at 20:11 UTC
I think Perl 6 is a lot closer than some People think. I'd be tempted to play with Rakudo (Perl 6 on Parrot). It's not finished, but it's usable to some extent. You wouldn't want to use it for production until sometime after it's official release, but there is no harm in being ahead of the game :) Lyle	[reply]
Re^2: Perl 6 by Lawliet (Curate) on Mar 01, 2009 at 00:30 UTC
I think Perl 6 is a lot closer than some People think. ~~oh hai. i herd u have sum inside information? share pl0x.~~ Why do you say that? And you didn't even know bears could type.	[reply]