Yep. Just what I've been saying. Every time someone complains that Perl 6 is taking too long or mourning that "they" got struck with second system effect, I have to think back to Perl4 and how many fewer things than Perl5 it had. Yet I don't think anyone nowadays misses Perl4 much. It's probably going to be the same with Perl6; years down the road people will probably shake heads at how needlessly complicated many things are to do in Perl5 that we'll have gotten used to in Perl6 by then.

I'm not all looking forward to it. Some decisions disappointed me, and I'm generally nervous about all the new stuff. However, I fully expect at least 95% of my worries to be habit dependent ones which will diminish with increasing familiarity.

And then, there are also already tons of goodies I'm itching to lay my hands on. Easy good object orientation will be a huge relief. Above all though, I am excitedly waiting to hear the rolling thunder when Perl6's pattern matching language shakes the computing world at its foundations. I believe it's going to make a monumental impact. I'm not just saying it will rock, I'm saying it will blow everything else out there out of its way like a meteor smashing into the Atlantic.

If you excuse me, I'll have to take a few breaths now. :) We'll see how the project turns out eventually.

Makeshifts last the longest.