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Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

blogs.perl.org

81–90 of 424 posts

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#81

To my mind, the blockers for Perl 6 adoption in order of importance have been: 1. The name, saddling it with the legacy of Perl. (I say this as someone who really liked working with Perl back in the waning years of the old millennium, and believes that Perl was visionary in pointing the way to the state of modern programming... but also that it had some limitations that have only become more glaring over the years.)…

> But why do people talk about ParrotVM and Rakudo as if they're different things? Java has a compiler and a VM, they're called "javac" and "jvm." Bad example: Java actually has many VMs available for it: Oracle, OpenJDK, Zing, and IBM come to mind. (EDIT: And "Dalvik", for all the Android fans). I'm unsure if Java has multiple compilers, but its quite possible. Python has CPython 2.0, CPython 3.0, and Jython at leas…

Sure, but most people don't know or care. They just type "python" and Python happens. If they need to find another implementation, it's possible, but there's no question about what the default implementation is.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#82

I'm sorry but Perl 6 isnt relevant IMO. It took too long. I was a Perl developer at etoys.com in 2000 and BBC in 2001. I wrote OneMusic for Radio1 and even convinced the BBCs uptight ops team to run it with modperl so it could handle the high traffic it did. I also created the job search engine WorkZoo in modperl, one of Time Magazines top 50 sites of 2005 and Indeed's main competitor at the time. Perl6 was promised.…

Perl6 is not “a single version update” of perl5. It’s an entirely new language.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#83
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good reason is that?

I still use Perl 5 for some tasks, but my rule-of-thumb is that if I anticipate wanting to use references, I will go elsewhere.

I suggest and use the opposite rule of thumb, "always use references". It tends to simplify things. Python writes the same rule into the language itself.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#85
post #13

This makes a lot of sense. Renaming Perl 6 means: * Perl 5 can continue being "perl" and have a future. People with existing perl codebases won't think they're going to need to upgrade. * Camilia/Raku/etc can be considered on its own merits. The C/C++ analogy is a good one: when things are different enough you stop expecting everyone to "upgrade" and instead are making a different language.

I don't see any future for Perl5. Through a type of Osborne Effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect - the development of Perl 6 has also killed Perl 5. Few or none will reach for Perl5 these days for new development - Python or Node.js have obliterated Perl as contender in the space it used to dominate and I don't see Perl5 ever muscling it's way back. Fairly or unfairly, Perl5 is viewed as a legacy tool these days.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is the whole point of renaming it, right? "Oh, it took too long to update Perl and now Perl is dead" is true. "Raku is an interesting new language with some neat features, and excels at this particular type of problem" can also be true. But nobody can hear this message while they keep thinking about Perl.

I doubt it. "Raku is an interesting new language with some neat features..." will be met with "Oh, you mean Perl 6? lol." If Perl is dead, renaming the last version isn't going to change anything.

Most likely, but as a Hail Mary last-ditch effort, it seems reasonable and probably better than nothing. "Raku" sounds at least 1% more interesting for a dev to look into trying than "Perl 6".

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why do people talk about ParrotVM and Rakudo as if they're different things? Java has a compiler and a VM, they're called "javac" and "jvm." Bad example: Java actually has many VMs available for it: Oracle, OpenJDK, Zing, and IBM come to mind. (EDIT: And "Dalvik", for all the Android fans). I'm unsure if Java has multiple compilers, but its quite possible. Python has CPython 2.0, CPython 3.0, and Jython at leas…

Sure, but most people don't know or care. They just type "python" and Python happens. If they need to find another implementation, it's possible, but there's no question about what the default implementation is.

> Sure, but most people don't know or care.

A lot of people care. It costs $3500 per server to run Zing Java. Every user of Zing cares enough to pay $3500. Everyone who has written an Android app cares about the distinction too. Dalvik has different quirks than regular Java. (EDIT: Oh boy, that shows how out of date I am. Apparently Android is now using Android Runtime instead of Dalvik....)

> If they need to find another implementation, it's possible, but there's no question about what the default implementation is.

The implementation can, and does, change without the language changing. That's the unfortunate truth about real world deployments. As such, you need a unique name for the interpreter.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#88

To my mind, the blockers for Perl 6 adoption in order of importance have been: 1. The name, saddling it with the legacy of Perl. (I say this as someone who really liked working with Perl back in the waning years of the old millennium, and believes that Perl was visionary in pointing the way to the state of modern programming... but also that it had some limitations that have only become more glaring over the years.)…

I would move 4 up to 2. Every time I read an article about how cool Perl 6, I see the clever bits of syntax and think "WTF? I might enjoy playing with that for fun, but no way in hell would I use that for work."

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#89

I'm sorry but Perl 6 isnt relevant IMO. It took too long. I was a Perl developer at etoys.com in 2000 and BBC in 2001. I wrote OneMusic for Radio1 and even convinced the BBCs uptight ops team to run it with modperl so it could handle the high traffic it did. I also created the job search engine WorkZoo in modperl, one of Time Magazines top 50 sites of 2005 and Indeed's main competitor at the time. Perl6 was promised.…

If Perl6 is ever performant, I'll be dropping Python for a lot of Scripting uses.

Perl6 is a big language, but has a lot of power and beauty.

Re: Is Perl 6 Being Renamed?

#90
post #41
post #36

Raku is a good name (can be abbreviated to 楽 as a bonus). Camelia is too long and is already the name of the mascot. Ofun is terrible (nothing like a product implying it's "fun" by literally including "fun" in the name).

Especially when it can readily be pronounced "Zero Fun"

Just like how people readily pronounce your user name "Tzerom Lzerong"?
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