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Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

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Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#121

Post by tzs »

bashcoder wrote: post #15

To a large degree, the ongoing utility of Perl 6 depends upon the continued vibrancy of the CPAN community. IMHO, CPAN is anything but vibrant by today's standards. While CPAN hosts a vast archive of nearly 35,000 modules[1], many are aging. Fewer than 800 modules are known to exist for Perl 6.[2] [1] http://www.modulecounts.com/ [2] https://modules.perl6.org/

It looks like Perl 6 does a good job of letting you use modules from other languages, which should help quite a bit.

Here's a link I found on Reddit showing an example of using Python's matplotlib from Perl 6.

https://gist.github.com/awwaiid/ef3f0abcfa96e34977b4

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#122

Post by branchly2 »

omouse wrote: post #106

I wrote up a tutorial on Perl 6 and tried to get it more widely known there are a lot of neat features in it and it looks far better designed than most languages: https://www.codementor.io/perl/tutorial/how-to-use-json-in-p... However, most people have dismissed it because they think Perl 5 is dead and anything using Perl should be replaced with Python or Ruby or Go or Rust or some other language. The hacker flavour…

> However, most people have dismissed it because they think Perl 5 is dead and anything using Perl should be replaced with Python or Ruby or Go or Rust or some other language.

I didn't dismiss it for that reason. I wanted to like Perl 6, but dismissed it because last time I tried learning it:

* it seemed to include too much syntax

* too much lingo required to understand core concepts

* no coherently-written definitive tutorial. No Camel book for that matte.

* most examples seem to be written with maximum quirky-ness to show off the acrobatics you can do. I just want to get work done.

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#123

Post by qbaqbaqba »

branchly2 wrote: post #122
omouse wrote: post #106

I wrote up a tutorial on Perl 6 and tried to get it more widely known there are a lot of neat features in it and it looks far better designed than most languages: https://www.codementor.io/perl/tutorial/how-to-use-json-in-p... However, most people have dismissed it because they think Perl 5 is dead and anything using Perl should be replaced with Python or Ruby or Go or Rust or some other language. The hacker flavour…

> However, most people have dismissed it because they think Perl 5 is dead and anything using Perl should be replaced with Python or Ruby or Go or Rust or some other language. I didn't dismiss it for that reason. I wanted to like Perl 6, but dismissed it because last time I tried learning it: * it seemed to include too much syntax * too much lingo required to understand core concepts * no coherently-written definitiv…

http://perl6intro.com/ is quite nice.

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#124

Post by dayve »

tootie wrote: post #35
larodi wrote: post #32

Substantial amount of Perl6 goodness is already baked one way or another in ES6/7, Python 3.x, Scala and even the modern C# and C++14/17. Speaking of stuff like concurrency, C3 resolution, object proxies (a.k.a AUTOLOAD), introspection/reflection, promises, reasonable regex engine, etc. As far as speed is concerned - with the modern approach to concurrent programming, it does not really make a difference which of the…

I chuckled the first time I saw 'use strict'; at the top of the javascript file. Node.js seems to be morphing more and more into Perl 5 with every new release.

use Node.js 'use strict' for Perl5

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#125

Post by gkya »

amyjess wrote: post #110

Everything I've seen about Perl 6, I love to death. I just wish I had an excuse to use it. The problem is, most of the time I start a new project, I default to Python because it's what I know. I know the libraries, I know the quirks of the built-in data structures, etc. So I just go with what I know. I really wish I had the discipline to sit down and tell myself "I'm going to write this next project in Perl 6 no matt…

This is how I feel about Common Lisp actually (I've a sweet spot for Lisp). I have switched from programming to humanities so I don't really have much programming to do, and all the little tools and stuff I need I code them up in Emacs Lisp, and because of that I actually have no use for CL ATM, and even though I want to write some CL so bad, I write all the stuff in Elisp, I just do that.. :)

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#126

Post by mst »

zyxzkz wrote: post #37
bashcoder wrote: post #15

To a large degree, the ongoing utility of Perl 6 depends upon the continued vibrancy of the CPAN community. IMHO, CPAN is anything but vibrant by today's standards. While CPAN hosts a vast archive of nearly 35,000 modules[1], many are aging. Fewer than 800 modules are known to exist for Perl 6.[2] [1] http://www.modulecounts.com/ [2] https://modules.perl6.org/

It doesn't help that CPAN is an archaic module system with a user interface (PAUSE) straight out of 1995.

PAUSE is ugly, though I mostly use automated uploaders so I don't have to look at it.

I'm not sure what you find archaic about CPAN, the package/distribution distinction is a huge win that the rest of the world still hasn't caught on to, and the file-based nature means it scales stupidly well (npm's scaling issues simply can't happen to us).

Unless by archaic you mean "built as simply as possible, and built to last", which is basically why I love it :)

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#127

Post by donaldihunter »

Perl 6 is my go-to language for writing command line utilities. The combination of MAIN subroutines, named regexes and full-blown grammars makes it simple to write documented, maintainable programs that can parse just about anything. Oh and Unicode support is awesome. This protobuf grammar is a good example of what Perl 6 grammars are like - https://github.com/donaldh/p6-pb/blob/master/lib/PB/Grammar.... - and worth comparing to the official protobuf language specification - https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/referenc...

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#128

Post by donaldihunter »

donaldihunter wrote: post #127

Perl 6 is my go-to language for writing command line utilities. The combination of MAIN subroutines, named regexes and full-blown grammars makes it simple to write documented, maintainable programs that can parse just about anything. Oh and Unicode support is awesome. This protobuf grammar is a good example of what Perl 6 grammars are like - https://github.com/donaldh/p6-pb/blob/master/lib/PB/Grammar.... - and worth…

Here's an example of a MAIN subroutine with POD6 documentation that produces a good command line usage message

https://github.com/donaldh/swagger-to-yang/blob/master/swagg...

https://github.com/donaldh/swagger-to-yang#usage

Re: Ask HN: Perl 6: Do you use it, how do you like it, what do you do with it?

#129

Post by donaldihunter »

donaldihunter wrote: post #127

Perl 6 is my go-to language for writing command line utilities. The combination of MAIN subroutines, named regexes and full-blown grammars makes it simple to write documented, maintainable programs that can parse just about anything. Oh and Unicode support is awesome. This protobuf grammar is a good example of what Perl 6 grammars are like - https://github.com/donaldh/p6-pb/blob/master/lib/PB/Grammar.... - and worth…

Low-level stuff on a Raspberry Pi, including native C library calls for mmap, munmap. Binding the mmap library call into Perl 6 is as simple as:

sub mmap(Pointer $addr, int32 $length, int32 $prot, int32 $flags, int32 $fd, int32 $offset) returns CArray[int32] is native {*}

https://github.com/donaldh/Perl6-RPi-GpioDirect/blob/master/...

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