I have followed the perl6 development effort since it basically started. I have never really been able to contribute -- most of the conversation was far beyond my understandings of language theory. I still do not get why closures are such a big deal :)

I was outraged when @larry stole ->. I thought for a long time that perl6 would never see the light of day (there was a long, dark period when the lists were very quiet). I was angry for a long time because this wasn't just perl5++ and I was going to have to learn a whole new language.

I have just recently, based on the activity of the lists, downloaded pugs again and started to play. It isn't often that playing around in a debugger makes me laugh. I keep saying stupid things and the language did the right thing anyway. I cannot wait until perl6 is done. This is a fun language that doesn't just DWIM, but DWIMC (does what I mean, correctly). And I am just playing with a prototype. I want a perl6 camel so I can figure out all the other fun stuff it does.

To all of the pessimists, just wait. Keep an open mind and give it a few honest tries. I doubted, I despaired, I claimed this was a great waste of time. I was wrong. perl6 is not perl5, but it will most definitely be Perl. It will be worth the wait.

Mik

PS -- This advert brought to you under my own free will. Just wait. perl6 is going to be all that. And a bag of chips.