Re: Perl 6: will we us it?

in reply to Perl 6: Will we use it?

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:

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

Comment on Re: Perl 6: will we us it?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Perl 6: will we us it? (perl4 < perl5 < perl6) by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jun 06, 2003 at 23:31 UTC
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.	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^2: Perl 6: will we us it? (perl4 < perl5 < perl6)
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jun 06, 2003 at 23:31 UTC

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.

[reply]

In Section Meditations