What would you do if you were Larry Wall?

I have had this idea for a post for a couple of days now and in light of the recently written Apocalypse 2, I have decided to post it. Basically I want to throw out a basic question to you all because after reading through the Apocalypse, I've found this kind of stuff to be real interesting :-). Coming to you in under ten words, here it is:

What changes would and wouldn't you make from perl5 to perl6 based on his recent decisions?
Would you completely change the structure of the Perl language as proposed?
Or would you try to have most of perl5 be compatible with perl6?
What functions would you create, what functions would you eliminate?

What would you do if you were Larry Wall?

What kinds of comments would you make sure to include in the perl6 source code?
Would you work to make a perl a more efficiently compileable language?
Would you continue to mess with perl or move your focuses to a language like Parrot?

What would you do if you were Larry Wall?

Would you change perl's license and continue to improve it for profit?
Would you hand over the project to the hands of Zenon Zabinski?
Or would you just let it sit and let it remain perl5 forever?

I have had this idea for a post for a while now and in light of this recently posted writeup, I've decided to post it. Basically, I want to throw out a basic question for you to think about and respond on because I have found that this kind of stuff is interesting to me. Coming to you in under two words, here it is:

Why ...?

Zenon Zabinski | zdog | zdog7@hotmail.com

NOTE: This post is NOT representative of any actual views of Zenon Zabinski, a.k.a. zdog. This post does not apply to you if your name is Larry Wall.

Comment on What would you do if you were Larry Wall?

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Re (tilly) 1: What would you do if you were Larry Wall? by tilly (Archbishop) on May 05, 2001 at 17:35 UTC
Were I Larry Wall, I doubt that Perl would be as successful a language as it is. That said, your comment about the license suggests a fundamental misconception on your part. Perl is a very successful language. Perl is free and open, and encourages the same for its users. These two statements are not independent. Trying to give Perl a restrictive license would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Many of its most valuable contributers would be unable or unwilling to contribute if it was a proprietary product. Many of its most capable and most valued promoters would be unlikely to use it if it was a proprietary product. Attempts to encourage the user community to share would fail if the language itself did not set an example. (Do you think Larry could write CPAN?) When you see the goose that lays golden eggs, don't try to figure out how to get the gold in the goose. Rather start by figuring out its diet...	[reply]
Re: What would you do if you were Larry Wall? by frankus (Priest) on Jun 26, 2002 at 09:15 UTC
If I were Larry Wall, I'd change the background colour on my homepage. -- Brother Frankus. ¤	[reply]
Re: What would you do if you were Larry Wall? by converter (Priest) on May 05, 2001 at 20:56 UTC
If I were Larry Wall, I would do exactly what Larry Wall is doing, because I would be Larry Wall. If I were in Larry Wall's position I would be in way over my head and probably in therapy.	[reply]
Re: What would you do if you were Larry Wall? by xbot (Initiate) on May 05, 2001 at 07:46 UTC
shave	[reply]