in reply to Will Perl 6 Replace Perl 5?

If you want to understand if Perl 5 will go into maintenance mode, I think the answer is NO. Perl 5 is the current Perl version and will be for quite some time. Asking about a Perl 6 release date will just get you defensive responses from the Perl 6 folks, if that's any indication.

If you want to understand what all the whining is about, check out this journal entry. Perl 6 folks read it and say, "Yes! That's right!" Outsiders (everyone else in the world) read it and ask WTF???

While the Perl 6 detractors lay it on a bit thick, I happen to believe that the Perl 6 supporters are not helping Perl's reputation by all their defensive, misconstruing complaints about outsiders. My two cents. But Perl 5 works great, I use it daily, and all the back and forth over whose compiler is bigger is really annoying.

Cheers! Back to work for me.

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Re^2: Will Perl 6 Replace Perl 5?
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jan 06, 2010 at 22:33 UTC
    Asking about a Perl 6 release date will just get you defensive responses from the Perl 6 folks, if that's any indication.

    How is it defensive? Here are two truths:

    1) Rakudo has had two years of monthly releases. The next release date is always the Thursday after the third Tuesday of the month.

    2) Rakudo is ready for you to use when you decide it's ready for you to use. No one else can decide that for you. Certainly we're not going to pretend we know the specifics of your business or hobby use. All we can do is make every monthly release better than the previous release.

    Perl 6 supporters is not helping Perl's reputation by all their defensive, misconstruing complaints about outsiders.

    I care not one whit for insiders versus outsiders versus people of indeterminate position. I care about explaining my goals and motivations correctly and accurately and correcting misconceptions of those goals and motivations appropriately.

    If you want to understand if Perl 5 will go into maintenance mode, I think the answer is NO.

    That's only true because Perl 5 has effectively been in maintenance mode for several years. A better question is "Will Perl 5 come out of maintenance mode?"

[reply]

      Look, it just seems to me that every one of these threads, here and elsewhere, seems to start with someone who's been using Perl for some length of time getting curious about Perl 6. They look around, google about, reading what they can find on perl6.org, and come away confused as to what it is and (oh my goodness) when it will be done.

      So they post some question about Perl 6 and then they (and all else reading the thread) get to read explanations like "it's a spec, not an implementation", "we're trying to get away from the concept of finished/not-finished", "people asking about the status of Perl 6 is a distraction" and my favorite, to the effect that "the specification is not complete and probably never will be because that's not the goal".

      I, like a lot of reasonable and knowledgeable persons, read this and think, Huh? I'm not saying any of the above is wrong, but can you see at all how so many postings regarding Perl 6 re completion|release dates|features can be a little hard to grok?

      I've used Perl for 12 years and continue to find it useful. I use all manner of advanced techniques, have written some well-received, hopefully helpful replies here and elsewhere, document my code, used to read the Perl Journal and Perl Review regularly, have greedily sucked down all the DeveloperWorks articles, always check to see if there's a new article on perl.com, have been to conferences, and even managed to get all the way through Higher Order Perl without my head exploding. While I don't consider myself an expert, I think I know a thing or two about Perl.

      And yet I am baffled by the replies from the Perl 6 crowd. Really. Baffled. Not whining because it doesn't fit my sensibilities, nor simply annoyed enough to write a trolling reply, but truly baffled. Reading the journal entry by patrick, linked above, I found myself reacting rather strongly. I shan't repeat my comments as it might have been an over-reaction, but it all just seems so odd and impenetrable.

      I don't know if I'm making my point very well, but I didn't want to appear to be ignoring your reply. Back to work for me...

      marmot

[reply]
        ... can you see at all how so many postings regarding Perl 6 re completion|release dates|features can be a little hard to grok?

        As I write almost every day, we release a new version of Rakudo Perl 6 every month, like we've done for the past two years. You can use it right now. It exists. You can write real code with it.

        Should you use it for your project? I can't answer that. I don't know what your project is.

        Should you use it for your business? I can't answer that. I don't know what your business does, how you manage developers, what experience you have, or your level of comfort and risk tolerance.

        You may believe that freezing the specification, concentrating all volunteer time and effort, and ignoring everything else until there's a tarball named perl6.0.0.tar.gz will answer both of those questions affirmatively for most people. We don't, and we don't manage the project that way.

        This is software, developed by a passionate and curious community. There is no "done".

[reply]

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