in reply to Re: New PerlMonks for Perl 6 - A Good Idea
in thread New PerlMonks for Perl 6 - A Good Idea

Thank you for your kind comments.

at this stage ..., the proposal to focus on a roadmap for a Perl6 site might better take a back burner

We've got talent to burn. I don't see why these can't proceed in parallel. In fact, I think they're better done in parallel, rather than sequentially. Imagine what would happen if there were a PerlMonks for Perl 6 today? It could, and would, evolve along with Perl 6. I don't think that's bad.

a similarly well-focused effort to re-spec this child (grandchild, nephew?) of the Everything architecture.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but if you're saying we should concentrate on making this PerlMonks better... well, all I can say is that it's happening as fast as it can. If the pace is unsatisfactory (and I'd agree that it is), then look at our constraints. It's frustrating, and I think it's only natural to start looking to a new, from-scratch construction, free of those constraints. We could make a new PerlMonks for Perl 5 site to replace this one, but why would we, when Perl 6 is right around the corner? (The Everything engine, it should be noted, is definitely in the "mistakes not to repeat" column. :-)

Perl6 will execute perl5 code without (significant?) issues

Personally, I think it would be a mistake to let this be a driver. If you had a web site for C++ programmers, would you want to support K&R C as well? Would you want the engine — assuming it's open for maintenance by the site's user community — to be written in C? I think not.

Should the p5 community arrogate to itself the job of spec'ing a p6 site architecture?

The Perl 5/6 communities are not disjoint. We have numerous monks here who are actively involved in the Perl 6 development. But more to the point, we — the Perl(5)Monks users/maintainers — have significant insight into what has made this site succeed and fail. The roadmap we'd spec would, I think, be generic enough that it could be used by almost any on-line geek community wishing to build a web site for itself — paramaterized appropriately, of course.

I'd also argue that one of the reasons behind this site's success is that it was built by (some) people not involved in the development of Perl 5. It was created to be a site for Perl users, not Perl developers.

there is a small difference between re-engineering a website and re-writing a language

Sure; that's why I said "analogous in many ways", rather than "exactly the same". But when you characterized my proposal as "re-engineering a website", I had to shudder, because that is not what I had in mind. I'm talking about creating a whole new web site, from the group up, just as Perl 6 is a whole new language, from the ground up. Each is inspired by, and informed by the lessons of, its predecessor.

/me notes that "predecessor" means "the one who died before". this is not how we usually use the word, though. ;-)

What is the sound of Windows? Is it not the sound of a wall upon which people have smashed their heads... all the way through?
  • Comment on Re^2: New PerlMonks for Perl 6 - A Good Idea

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Re^3: New PerlMonks for Perl 6 - A Good Idea
by ww (Archbishop) on Jun 24, 2010 at 22:01 UTC
    "talent to burn"

    Uh, lemme' think about that.
    Ah, got it!
    That's why jdporter has -- for the past year or more -- been very nearly the "sole practicioner" of our recent improvements?

    And despite the irony above, + + "proceed in parallel"... and possibly feeding off each other's notions re structure.

    SWMBO rang the dinner bell. I posted incompletely. Adding some of what was originally intended now... in para marked "postprandial add"

    postprandial add: "making this PerlMonks better... well, all I can say is that it's happening as fast as it can."
    as noted above, I think many of us recognize that you're making this PM better... but we surely need more talent applied here (or, maybe, talent with more time to apply it).  </add>

    "It was created to be a site for Perl users, not Perl developers."

    Couldn't agree more. Were it entirely guided by the knowledge of devs; oriented solely to their needs; and (implied by the preceeding) developed solely by them, I doubt we'd have the site or community we have today.

    But! How many P6 "users" do we really have? How many exist anywhere?
    We do see evidence that individual Monks are experimenting with 6 but that doesn't persuade me that we have very many folk who are "users" in thesense used to distinguish those coders who may or may not be highly knowledgeable from those involved in development of a language. We have many of both here, but to characterize all Monks as "both" would probably be unjustified.

    postprandial add:

    "The roadmap we'd spec would, I think, be generic enough..."

    If your recommendation takes wing; if participants share the goals and respect the views of others; if the factori adminstrativi can handle the demands of a rather diffuse group of devs ("spec-ers? mappers?"), this could be a major plus for the Perl community -- 5 and 6 (and blessings on you, those still waiting to upgrade from 4 or earlier).  </add>

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      That's why jdporter has -- for the past year or more -- been very nearly the "sole practicioner" of our recent improvements?

      I have often thought about becoming a dev on/for PM but without mincing words: I have to work with painful legacy code all day already; I do *not* want to do more of it in my free time. The hurdle to contribution is too high for most of us today.

      The expectation that for something new we'd be using git, writing tests for everything, being sane about MVC and REST, building on the progress and lessons of the Perl 5 renaissance, etc means much more talent would become available and ready to get with the program.

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