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The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

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11–20 of 59 posts

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#12

One promising thing about Perl 6 was the way it tried to bring parsers to everyday programming the way Perl popularized regular expressions. I'm sad the language seems to have stalled for that reason.

You're almost exactly right there. One promising thing about Perl 6 is the way it brings parsers to everyday programming the way previous Perls popularized regexes. :)

Perl 6's approach to syntax, operators, grammars, language extension, etc. is like Common Lisp's reader macros; except that Perl 6 makes them easy and composable. Common Lisp libraries tend to use reader macros very sparingly because it's hard to make them play together nicely. Perl 6 makes it easy to alter the syntax in ways that play together nicely. Many of Rakudo's core operators are defined in normal Perl 6 code. It's trivial to make new ones of your own. The more extensive grammar modifications aren't quite there yet, I think, but it'll happen, and it will be revolutionary.

Fortunately, it hasn't stalled. It's moving along quite well.

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#13
I'd like to mention Dan Sugalski who, before Audrey, was a similar whirlwind for the Parrot project. He too was sadly burnt out long before his time.

I highly recommend perusing his well written blogs that wonderfully explain difficult programming topics.

http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#14
post #12

One promising thing about Perl 6 was the way it tried to bring parsers to everyday programming the way Perl popularized regular expressions. I'm sad the language seems to have stalled for that reason.

You're almost exactly right there. One promising thing about Perl 6 is the way it brings parsers to everyday programming the way previous Perls popularized regexes. :) Perl 6's approach to syntax, operators, grammars, language extension, etc. is like Common Lisp's reader macros; except that Perl 6 makes them easy and composable. Common Lisp libraries tend to use reader macros very sparingly because it's hard to make…

How does it compare to camlp4? Camlp4 extensions are mostly composable, provided two extensions don't directly conflict with each other.

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#16

One promising thing about Perl 6 was the way it tried to bring parsers to everyday programming the way Perl popularized regular expressions. I'm sad the language seems to have stalled for that reason.

I'm curious, how did you get that impression?

I'm one of the Perl 6 developers, and IMHO the regexes and grammars are one of the "killer" features. And I've also seen them evolve gradually, and have used them for various purposes.

What gave you the impression that it has stalled? Is that the general impression on the outside of the Perl 6 community? What kind of marketing could we do to reach you?

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#17
post #12

One promising thing about Perl 6 was the way it tried to bring parsers to everyday programming the way Perl popularized regular expressions. I'm sad the language seems to have stalled for that reason.

You're almost exactly right there. One promising thing about Perl 6 is the way it brings parsers to everyday programming the way previous Perls popularized regexes. :) Perl 6's approach to syntax, operators, grammars, language extension, etc. is like Common Lisp's reader macros; except that Perl 6 makes them easy and composable. Common Lisp libraries tend to use reader macros very sparingly because it's hard to make…

[deleted]

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#18
post #12

One promising thing about Perl 6 was the way it tried to bring parsers to everyday programming the way Perl popularized regular expressions. I'm sad the language seems to have stalled for that reason.

You're almost exactly right there. One promising thing about Perl 6 is the way it brings parsers to everyday programming the way previous Perls popularized regexes. :) Perl 6's approach to syntax, operators, grammars, language extension, etc. is like Common Lisp's reader macros; except that Perl 6 makes them easy and composable. Common Lisp libraries tend to use reader macros very sparingly because it's hard to make…

[deleted]

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#19
post #13

I'd like to mention Dan Sugalski who, before Audrey, was a similar whirlwind for the Parrot project. He too was sadly burnt out long before his time. I highly recommend perusing his well written blogs that wonderfully explain difficult programming topics. http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/

His "What the heck is" and "What the heck was I thinking?" are particularly good.

Re: The Perl 6 project 10 years old today

#20
post #11

After reading that, it seems like Perl has rather nice community. If Python has engineers and Ruby rockstars, then I'd say that Perl has hackers.

I kind of toyed around with adding a little addition to langpop.com looking at the 'rockstar ratio': overall popularity compared to "rock star" sitings in the job ads. Never got around to it though...
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