Like the modern Perl testing culture? Thank Perl 6.

Man, you sound like those people claiming the race to the moon was worthwhile because it gave us Velcro and a pen to write upside down with. As if we wouldn't have had Velcro or something similar otherwise. Or that didn't pencils allow us the write upside down for a long time already.

I'm not denying Perl has borrowed from Perl6. Just as it has been borrowing from other languages since its birth. But without Perl6, Perl would have borrowed elsewhere. Or the ideas first raised on a Perl6 mailinglist would have raised somewhere else in the Perl world and found its way into Perl.

Would Perl be where it's now (5.12.1) without Perl6? Unlikely. Would it have progressed equally well the past decade without Perl6?^† I believe that to be likely. Would it have progressed even more if some of the resources now spend on Perl6 had been spend in Perl? Seems logical to me.

†For instance, Perl may have had a switch statement, and/or a smart match operator, if there hadn't been Perl6. It may not have been called given/when, and smart match is likely to have worked differently.

Are you suggesting we wouldn't have the "modern testing culture" if there hadn't been a Perl 6?

No. I meant exactly what I wrote. The testing culture Perl has now is due to Perl 6. The Perl QA group began life as the Perl 6 QA group.

Even if I did have a time machine and the power to create parallel universes, I have no interest in running the kind of experiments necessary to prove that Perl 5 would have eventually stumbled into something equally good (if different) or better without the existence of Perl 6. You're welcome to speculate as much as you want, but it doesn't matter.

It's foolish to pretend that Perl 5 hasn't borrowed liberally from Perl 6, from simple features such as say to larger features such as Moose (though Perl 6 isn't the only influence there) and smart match, and even to development practices.

But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that. Or at least by their very own definition until they have proven Perl 6 is just not that after a couple of year use.

I find statements like this weird. It seems to presuppose that "Perl 5 people" and "Perl 6 people" are mutually exclusive. What gives "Perl 6 people" the right to call Perl 5 ugly, complex, etc. is that they've used Perl 5 for perhaps years already. "Perl 6 people" are "Perl 5 people" just dissatisfied with the status quo.

duff

Let me quote Pm's node again:

I'm after the folks who think that Perl 5 is too ugly, complex, or otherwise has too many rough edges such that they instead choose some non-Perl-compatible scripting platform altogether.

Did he call Perl 5 ugly? I don't think so. Nor is that a statement I hear often in #perl6 or in other Perl 6 communication channels (except maybe from TimToady, but I guess he has a good right to call it such :-)

Perl 6 - links to (nearly) everything that is Perl 6.

But that doesn't give Perl 6 folks any rights to call Perl 5 Ugly or Complex or has tough edges and things like that.

No one needs permission to admit that the Perl 5 dereferencing syntax is ugly, or the special case of variables $main::a and $main::b is inconsistent, or the divergence in return values between system and every other system call, or the typeglob aliasing syntax, or the action at a distance of superglobals (and which ones are in main by default and which aren't?).

Perl 5 has its warts. One goal of Perl 6 is to invent new mistakes.