http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=446375

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

Dear Monks,

Just a quick one (hopefully),

When Perl6 comes out, will the basic principals of Perl5 still be valid, e.g. most of the fundamental information from "Learning Perl"?

Are there any basic migration info pages out yet?

Thanks.

Walking the road to enlightenment... I found a penguin and a camel on the way.....
Fancy a yourname@perl.me.uk? Just ask!!!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Basic Perl5 to basic Perl6?
by tlm (Prior) on Apr 10, 2005 at 13:51 UTC

    The resources I know of for beginning to learn about Perl 6 are

    As for your other question, here's what the Perl FAQ (not to be confused with the Perl6 FAQ cited earlier) has to say:

    Perl6 is not scheduled for release yet, and Perl5 will still be supported for quite awhile after its release. Do not wait for Perl6 to do whatever you need to do.

    I have seen diverging opinions on how much of a jolt to programmers the advent of Perl 6 will be (see for example this PM thread), but I think that a solid knowledge of Perl5 is a better background for learning Perl6 than a weak or no knowledge of Perl5.

    the lowliest monk

      The resources I know of for beginning to learn about Perl 6 are
      To which I'd like to add that on p6l somebody had asked for simple examples on "howto" do, say, task "x" in Perl6 and somebody else answered to just ask and that relevant examples would have been supplied on list. It must be said that this practice has not been practiced much...

      More recently there's been some talking about something similar but more effective. Look up for "pleac" e.g. in http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.language/

      UPDATE: wrt the above, see also Perl6 Cookbook.

      This pretty much covers a lot of the questions I had in my head.

      Also, a lot to digest :)

      I think a lot of Windows® people will be happier with being able to create .exe now. Just about every other day on all the beginners mailing lists and sometimes on here, that question always comes up.

      Walking the road to enlightenment... I found a penguin and a camel on the way.....
      Fancy a yourname@perl.me.uk? Just ask!!!
Re: Basic Perl5 to basic Perl6?
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Apr 10, 2005 at 15:49 UTC
    ghenry,
    There are several concurrent projects in the works to help make the transition easier. merlyn has been approached to verify there is nothing preventing someone from translating the code in the Llama to Perl6, which apparently there is not. Another project is to make the Perl6 Cookbook, which Ovid has recently started working on.

    And while Perl6 is still going to be the essence of Perl at its heart, it is a complete re-write. You should familarize yourself with the As, Es, and Ss - which can be found at http://dev.perl.org/perl6/.

    Cheers - L~R

      merlyn has been approached to verify there is nothing preventing someone from translating the code in the Llama to Perl6, which apparently there is not.
      Careful. That makes it sound like I gave permission, as if I had the authority to do so. I believe all I said was "I see no reason that there should be a problem, but you need to contact O'Reilly, because they own the book. I don't."

      Please don't misinterpret what I said, or spread false conclusions based on that.

      -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
      Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

        merlyn,
        Thanks for the clarification. It was never my intention to mislead or misrepresent. I will either better fact check next time or annotate the posting with a disclaimer that the information has not been verified.

        Cheers - L~R

      Curious that you should mention that since I was talking to O'Reilly about it last week, now that we've finished that latest update to Learning Perl, 4th Edition. I just need to find more time between all the other stuff I'm writing and publishing to actually get on it. :)

      --
      brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>

        The FAQ is an interesting read. I haven't had time to read the As, Es, and Ss yet.

        In the mean time, I will get on with learning Perl5 to the fullest.

        brian_d_foy, when is "Learning Perl, 4th Edition" coming out?

        Any links to a preview TOC etc.?

        Walking the road to enlightenment... I found a penguin and a camel on the way.....
        Fancy a yourname@perl.me.uk? Just ask!!!

      Limbic~Region

      I will do.

      I was thinking of getting one of the Perl6 books, but I'm sure the dev site will be the best source of information and here.

      Walking the road to enlightenment... I found a penguin and a camel on the way.....
      Fancy a yourname@perl.me.uk? Just ask!!!
Re: Basic Perl5 to basic Perl6?
by Ovid (Cardinal) on Apr 10, 2005 at 22:26 UTC
Re: Basic Perl5 to basic Perl6?
by doom (Deacon) on Apr 11, 2005 at 02:53 UTC
    I think the standard answer is that you can continue coding "perl 5" once perl 6 comes out, if you're so inclined. Perl 6 is intended to run perl 5 modules without modification (the keyword "package" indicates the following is perl 5 code, but a file that leads with the new keyword "class" will be interpreted as perl 6 code).

    You might want to take a look at the Scott Walker book: Perl 6 Now, which is out from Apress. Essentially this is a book about how to write code immediately in a "perl6ish" style, using the various (varyingly scary) "Perl6" modules out on CPAN. I'm in the middle of reading it right now myself, and I think it's pretty good: lots of vary clear code examples, some fun example projects (e.g. hacking MOD files, the MIDI-plus-samples audio format that was popularized by the Amiga), and so on. Early on there's a lot of comparison of the way you can do things in perl 5 and the way you're expected to do things in perl 6, with some short, well-annotated code examples.

    The only downside is that this is clearly a very quickly put together work, and the clarity of the writing itself doesn't always live up to the high standards of the perl books we're used to.

Re: Basic Perl5 to basic Perl6?
by cog (Parson) on Apr 10, 2005 at 14:43 UTC
    I'd just like to point that Perl6 will take, at least, two more years to come out.

    (this might be useful information, depending on why he's asking)

      cog,
      What makes you think that? I am only asking because the rather recently updated Perl6 FAQ indicates a working compiler by the 3rd quarter of 2005. I believe pmichaud, the Perl6 Compiler Pumpking, is the one who made that statement. Additionally, the bootstrapping problem may end up getting solved by Pugs though that is up in the air. The rumor mill indicates that TimToady is making a fair amount of progress for the p5 to p6 translator.

      I am not trying to be overly optimistic, I am just saying recent developments lead me to believe 2 years is not a minimum wait anymore and I was wondering what made you think it was.

      Cheers - L~R

        Well, it is true that I might be wrong, because predicting the future is not my best ability, but what made me think that was this thread on use.Perl.

        I don't recall all the thread by heart (hey, 63 comments over a month old), but I seem to remember people talking about Perl6 not being ready until the end of 2006...

        Again, I might be wrong, sure, but that's the idea I kept from that thread :-\