Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly • Hacker News Board

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#81

Post by chromatic » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

nchelluri wrote: post #11

CJefferson wrote: post #6

Once this is out, I'll be interested in any well written guides or books, it has always felt like "the one that got away" to me. Back in 2002 I had to choose between learning between Python and Perl for a project, but "everybody knew" Perl 5 was soon going to be replaced by a new shiny different Perl 6, so I chose Python. It will be interesting to see where Perl can live and gain new users nowadays. Python has so muc…

I think you can learn most/all of Perl 5.32 with http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/ , and it appears this is, initially, going to be 5.32 with some saner defaults. So you could really start now, given that. > This beloved guide is now completely updated for Perl 5.22. I've been working with Perl since about 5.20 and am on 5.31 or 5.32 and haven't noticed many breaking changes FWIW.

The 2016 edition covers most of what's in 5.32; if I were to do an update for Perl 5.32, I'd include postfix dereferencing and the built-in function signature mechanisms now that they're very stable and supported.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#82

Post by papito » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

sumanthvepa wrote: post #24

I was part of a team that wrote significant parts of Amazon's payment processing systems in Perl in the late 90s. I really loved the language. It's object system was so flexible and powerful. Once you understood how write idiomatic perl. It was a joy to use. I'm looking forward to trying out Perl 7.

Perl was a great fun scripting language back in the day of CGI and "webmaster@".

It died a noble, honorable death. RIP.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#83

Post by noisy_boy » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

foobar_ wrote: post #64

This is just bad maintenance. Just pick all the stuff people are complaining about and fix it! 1. Improve threads 2. Improve C API support 3. Give local::lib, cpanm by default ... multiple perl versions by default 4. Give direct support for coroutines / async await 5. Mark experimental features as non-experimental (attributes, signatures) 6. Pick an OO system, package system 7. Make switch cool again 8. Get more core…

One more: add a proper exception handling setup.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#84

Post by earthboundkid » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #48

sumanthvepa wrote: post #24

I was part of a team that wrote significant parts of Amazon's payment processing systems in Perl in the late 90s. I really loved the language. It's object system was so flexible and powerful. Once you understood how write idiomatic perl. It was a joy to use. I'm looking forward to trying out Perl 7.

huh. I spent a couple years writing perl professionally, I guess that was around 2006, and I couldn't agree less. Its object system is so bizarre compared to any other language - it's like it doesn't really have an object system, it has parts of a system that you can try to assemble, but no matter what you do you end up with something weird. And on top of that, the sigils, refs, and `wantarray` systems means that fig…

Perl definitely has a lot of non-patterned arcana. For instance,

$| This variable, if nonzero, will flush the output buffer after every write() or print() function. Normally, it is set to 0.

In other languages, you do something like os.stdout.buffered(true) or sys.stdout = io::buffer(sys.stdout) or something like that where you're combining composable pieces: the standard std variable, a standard way of opening files with or without a buffer, etc. Perl instead has an obscure global variable that you have to look up/memorize, and it doesn't even have a sensible name like $STDOUT_BUFFERING, so readers who come across $| in a file have to look it up/recall from rote memorization, or hope it has a good comment above it.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#85

Post by peterwwillis » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #48

sumanthvepa wrote: post #24

I was part of a team that wrote significant parts of Amazon's payment processing systems in Perl in the late 90s. I really loved the language. It's object system was so flexible and powerful. Once you understood how write idiomatic perl. It was a joy to use. I'm looking forward to trying out Perl 7.

huh. I spent a couple years writing perl professionally, I guess that was around 2006, and I couldn't agree less. Its object system is so bizarre compared to any other language - it's like it doesn't really have an object system, it has parts of a system that you can try to assemble, but no matter what you do you end up with something weird. And on top of that, the sigils, refs, and `wantarray` systems means that fig…

> You learn perl, and you've learned nothing but Larry Wall.

Yes, this is why it's nice. You don't have to worship at the foot of an industry which slavishly tries to implement a misunderstanding of a system some dude made up 40 years ago to get around problems in other systems some other dudes made up before that. It's weird on purpose. And it's backwards-compatible-crufty on purpose.

Today I can run Perl code written two decades ago, but with the latest interpreter. I don't think any other interpreted language can do that, can they? (Bourne shell?)

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#86

Post by NortySpock » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

QuesnayJr wrote: post #26

Upvoter33 wrote: post #21

There used to be a big Python/Perl debate. I'm not sure I could have predicted how well that would turn out for Python, and how poorly for Perl. Readability and ease of use matters?

I think it was really Perl 6 that killed it. Perl had a significant lead over Python, and the Perl 6 announcement just sucked the life out of it.

So it's the Osborne effect? Where you stop using Perl 5 because you're waiting for Perl 6 (announced in 2000, released never? As Raku? As a rolling release? The history appears confusing in Wikipedia.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#87

Post by chubot » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

smaili wrote: post #20

banana_giraffe wrote: post #2

They last line of the article summarizes it well: > Perl 7 is v5.32 with different settings. Your code should work if it’s not a mess. Expect a user release within a year. Are there actually people that are still deploying new things in Perl? The only times I see it is for legacy stuff, and then only because the script is too much of a hassle to be rewritten.

IIRC Craigslist was written in Perl but that's the only high traffic site that comes to mind.

I think they still write everything in Perl, and they employ Larry Wall (or they did several years ago, last I heard)

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#88

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

anon776 wrote: post #76

nchelluri wrote: post #9

> PHP went directly from 5 to 7, and isn’t it time to steal something from that community? :D

There was a php6... we just do not talk about it. There is a perl 6 also.

There was a perl 6, but it is no longer perl, though it's still 6.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#89

Post by justin66 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

briandfoy wrote: post #56

CJefferson wrote: post #6

Once this is out, I'll be interested in any well written guides or books, it has always felt like "the one that got away" to me. Back in 2002 I had to choose between learning between Python and Perl for a project, but "everybody knew" Perl 5 was soon going to be replaced by a new shiny different Perl 6, so I chose Python. It will be interesting to see where Perl can live and gain new users nowadays. Python has so muc…

I already have Preparing for Perl 7 on LeanPub ( https://leanpub.com/preparing_for_perl7 )

I haven't touched perl in something like 15 years, but I can attest that Brian's (brian's? :) ) writings are useful.

Re: Perl 7 is going to be Perl 5.32, mostly

#90

Post by cutler » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #36

bhaavan wrote: post #15

This feels like a last ditch attempt to save a dying language. ( https://i.imgflip.com/4676mf.jpg ) I wonder what exactly does Perl bring to the table as a language, why would one consider choosing it over other languages.

People are interested in using it and people are interested in developing it, so it continues to be used and developed. I got my start with Perl; I wrote a book about it, I spoke at every conference, I did training, I maintained the Emacs mode. I started working at Google and, forced to use static languages, found them to be just as productive as Perl. And, they eliminated a lot of problems with Perl -- libraries wer…

Perl lost the war because it didn't turn-up for the battle. In the 2000s it went into a kind of COVID19 self-isolation phase. First there was Parrot - a half-assed attempt to create a CLR for dynamic languages. When that failed the MoarVM adventure began. There were about 3 implemetations of Perl6 in development simultaneously (MoarVM, JVM & Rakudo) as Perl5 hemorrhaged mindshare. All-in-all it took 15 years to produce a 1.0 which was so dog-slow for Perl's common use-case it was unusable ... and still is.