perl5 shouldn't be a target for termination
Nobody is [or, rather, should be] suggesting that Perl 5 will be exterminated the minute Perl 6 is released. Quite to the contrary, they're retrofitting the entire perl5 engine to run on top of Parrot. Fears about the language suddenly dying are incredible misplaced.
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Notice the `even in 20 years'. I'm not standing against a `sudden death', I'm standing against a death at all, and that's what happens when languages change versions. Where is Perl 4? Quite gone. I've talked to people who feel this is bound to happen sometime with Perl 5. I think that shouldn't
be the case, and then a fork comes to mind. It'd be more of
a symbolic thing, really.. versions have a symbolic effect
I think does not fit so nicely here.
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Where is Perl 4? Quite gone.
The transition from Perl 4 to 5 was quite different, because it was evolutionary. Sure, it was a big evolution, but it wasn't in the same category. Perl 6 is different. It can probably be described more accurately as revolutionary, though I try to avoid that term (it is just a tad loaded).
I've talked to people who feel this is bound to happen sometime with Perl 5.
Everything is bound to go away, at some point. Things don't last forever, and to wish they would is to hope for stagnation. That said, I think Perl 5 will be around for a long time. I won't venture to say 20 years, but I am confident in at very least a 5 year time frame, if not much longer.
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Perl 4 is gone? Someone must have a copy of it lying around if you wish to still use it. :-)
Perl is open source; no one is making anyone upgrade. If no one uses Perl 4 anymore, I think it's more a case that the people have "voted with their feet" and migrated to Perl 5 due to its suitedness for general programming.
No one speaks Latin anymore either.. languages evolve and change to suit the needs of the speakers.
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