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

Hi
i wonder why there is no alpha or beta version for perl6 , why there is no normal distribution for perl 6 like the distribution of perl5, i know that perl 5 is developed using C language, but what is the language in which perl 6 are developed now?? i know i can run perl6 in a virtualization mode but this is not satisfacory, i am like the other street people hearing something like haskel, raduko, pug, this is not normal, the status for me like looking at a lunar basement remotely in which the perl 6 developers are residing there thinking and making lectures about philosophy
forgive me my ignorance
i seek some enlightenment
thank you

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: alpha/beta perl6 versions
by masak (Scribe) on Nov 28, 2009 at 11:36 UTC

    i wonder why there is no alpha or beta version for perl6

    If you think of the developer releases of Rakudo as somewhere between 'alpha' and 'beta', I'd say that your expectations will be about right. It's just that we don't tend to use the terms 'alpha' or 'beta' as such when describing Perl 6 implementations. Let me refer to two blog posts by pmichaud++, who describes the situation much better than I can.

    why there is no normal distribution for perl 6 like the distribution of perl5

    Actually, where there's one normative Perl 5 implementation, that has never been the case with Perl 6, which is defined not by an implementation but by a specification. Rather than one implementation being 'official', all implementations which implement the spec can be called Perl 6.

    That said, Rakudo is the implementation which is the furthest along, and the one with the highest speed of implementation and number of developers.

    i know that perl 5 is developed using C language, but what is the language in which perl 6 are developed now

    See above. The answer depends on which implementation you're talking about. Pugs is written in Haskell. Rakudo is written on top of PCT, a compiler toolkit for Parrot. Elf is written in Perl 6. SMOP is written in C.

    know i can run perl6 in a virtualization mode but this is not satisfacory

    Come to #perl6 on freenode. Download Rakudo and give it a whirl.

    i am like the other street people hearing something like haskel, raduko, pug, this is not normal, the status for me like looking at a lunar basement remotely in which the perl 6 developers are residing there thinking and making lectures about philosophy

    I sense a combination of frustration and disappointment in this last part. Believe me, the Perl 6 community is very open towards the outside world, we don't try to shut outselves in. We have a good blogosphere presence, and are in the process of writing books, tutorials and documentation to make things easier for beginners.

    But one can't reach everybody, and Perl 6 has something of a history of questionable PR. I think the general feeling within the Perl 6 community is to plod along, producing robust and reliable results as soon as we possibly can.

    (Edit: added missing word.)

Re: alpha/beta perl6 versions
by zwon (Abbot) on Nov 28, 2009 at 11:09 UTC

    If you don't like principles on which Perl6 based, just don't use it. Note that Perl6 is not a next version of Perl5, it's another language. Perl5 development won't stop after Perl6 will be released, so there will be no need to move to Perl6 unless you want it.

    You can find development releases of Perl6 implementation Rakudo on http://rakudo.org.