And, having said that, I really ought to say that this isn't one of the reasons behind perl 6. The need to learn this stuff is acting as something of a brake on things in many cases--we don't want people to have to learn new things. It's inevitable, of course, but since we don't want it we're making sure that the changes have good reason behind them. (Whether the reasons are good enough is, of course, a matter of personal opinion...)