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Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

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Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#11
post #4

I honestly did not expect to see the day Perl 6 gets finished. This must have been one of the most difficult - if not the most difficult - births in the history of programming languages. At work, I have been using Perl 5 increasingly often over the past two years, mainly because handling unicode in Python 2 is not a lot of fun (and I still haven't come around to learning Python 3), and I have rediscovered why I used…

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Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#12
Perl was the first programming language I ever used, and i think 6 was being worked on even then. I've moved on to ruby as my goto, but my (limited) memories of perl are fond, and I'm happy to see its still moving forward.

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#14
post #2

Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6 and no comments on hacker news an hour later. That's the new headline that sums up Perl: an anachronistic programming language that may never recover from the perl 5->6 decade long 'freeze'. Also the language is crazy to write substantial programs in!

There was discussion about it yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331008

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#15

Seems too little too late. Is Perl still relevant in 2015? What would you build in Perl today that you wouldn't build in another language instead? I used to be a big fan of Perl but it seems to have fallen behind the times, I doubt Perl 6 is enough to catch up.

The typing and grammar mechanism aren't common, it may influence other languages. Also, Perl managed to survive even without mainstream relevance so the community will probably keep enjoying it.

ps: I found this talk pretty convincing about pragmatism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpu-3UF_b48

also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpqnNCx7wVY

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#16
post #4

I honestly did not expect to see the day Perl 6 gets finished. This must have been one of the most difficult - if not the most difficult - births in the history of programming languages. At work, I have been using Perl 5 increasingly often over the past two years, mainly because handling unicode in Python 2 is not a lot of fun (and I still haven't come around to learning Python 3), and I have rediscovered why I used…

I share the same sentiment. I am so glad to see it finally formally launched. Now, to dig in to Perl 6!

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#17

Seems too little too late. Is Perl still relevant in 2015? What would you build in Perl today that you wouldn't build in another language instead? I used to be a big fan of Perl but it seems to have fallen behind the times, I doubt Perl 6 is enough to catch up.

There is nothing stopping a resurgence of Perl, if it's an order of magnitude better than competitors. If the combination of modern Perl techniques and the language make it a good enough fit for a new interesting framework or tool, then we might all be writing Perl again in a few years.

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#18

Perl was the first programming language I ever used, and i think 6 was being worked on even then. I've moved on to ruby as my goto, but my (limited) memories of perl are fond, and I'm happy to see its still moving forward.

Every time I try and write ruby I end up giving up because the OO is boilerplate heavy and restrictive compared to Moo/Moose.

Basically "No method modifiers and I have to write my own constructors? Really?" always drives me away within a few hours.

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#19
post #2

Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6 and no comments on hacker news an hour later. That's the new headline that sums up Perl: an anachronistic programming language that may never recover from the perl 5->6 decade long 'freeze'. Also the language is crazy to write substantial programs in!

Is it so crazy though? With frameworks like Mojolicious and Dancer, you can set up a whole website using syntax familiar to someone coming from Sinatra on Ruby or Express on NodeJS.

Re: Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

#20

Seems too little too late. Is Perl still relevant in 2015? What would you build in Perl today that you wouldn't build in another language instead? I used to be a big fan of Perl but it seems to have fallen behind the times, I doubt Perl 6 is enough to catch up.

There is nothing stopping a resurgence of Perl, if it's an order of magnitude better than competitors. If the combination of modern Perl techniques and the language make it a good enough fit for a new interesting framework or tool, then we might all be writing Perl again in a few years.

Just needs to get more jobs posted for it first. Going back to the original comment:

>What would you build in Perl today that you wouldn't build in another language instead?

You could turn it around too: what could you build in another language that you couldn't build in Perl? Well, nothing really. It's a matter of taste, and I think what continues to set Perl apart is its syntax, which could be really good and readable when you don't try to do code golf.

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