Personally I think Perl6 is only a new language to the same sort of extent that Perl5 was a new language compared to Perl4 (remember the time before lexicals and objects :-)

I think you will be surprised about how familiar Perl6 will seem.

There are big things (for me) wrong with Perl5 (e.g. the poor encapsulation of state and implementation in objects) that cause problems in development. They also cause problems in the acceptance of Perl in the wider development community.

Why do I use Perl then? Because its advantages outweigh its disadvantages (e.g. CPAN, rapid development time, etc.).

To me Perl6 looks like Perl5 without the cruft that causes me problems. I'll move to Perl6 as soon as it starts solving problems more easily than Perl5 does :-)

You might also find previous discussions of interest:

• NO PERL 6
• Perl 6 is too complex
• Favorite Perl 6 feature?

(Also, I try and learn at least one new programming language a year - and Perl6 will be so easy :-)