Perl 6 Is Ready For Release

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Perl 6 Is Ready For Release

The Perl 6 Advent Calendar has announced the release of Perl 6...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Perl-6-Release

[kaprikawn]

I use Perl5 almost daily at work, I'm a big fan. I really can't see my corporate overlords wanting to switch to a newer version, my workplace is very conservative in software (it took us ages to move off IE6...shudder). I hope Perl6 doesn't become another Python 3 if it really is a big step up.

[Veerappan]

I wrote perl professionally until ~4 years ago... It was great for what we used it for, but you could definitely tell that there was some aging.... The OO portions definitely seemed grafted on, for one.

We'll see how 6 plays out.

[dkasak]

I'm also a huge fan of Perl - I push on building new project in it everywhere I go But if you want to compare Python 3 to Perl 6, I think the jump is *far* bigger. Perl 6 is like an entirely new language compared to Perl 5. I guess the question is: where are Perl 6 developers going to come from? If the answer is "primarily from the Perl 5 ranks", then I wonder how successful it can be - particularly since Perl 6 is basically a new language ( hence less likely to attract Perl 5 devs ). If we manage to win over devs from other languages ( and yeah, it's not a competition ), then I think both Perl 5 and Perl 6 can continue to flourish. Having said that, there is supposed to be a compatibility layer that allows you to import Perl 5 libraries. This is certainly needed for me, as I primarily do database work, and there is no DBI for Perl 6 ( there is a DBI-like library with drivers for a handful of databases ).

Anyway, since it's been "released" ... I guess I'd better try it out soon ...

[Delgarde]

If we manage to win over devs from other languages ( and yeah, it's not a competition ), then I think both Perl 5 and Perl 6 can continue to flourish.

Honestly, I can't see that happening. A lot of people (myself included) have abandoned Perl over the years, because we found other languages that were just plain better - many moved to Python or Ruby or PHP, and in the last few years, many seem to have moved to Javascript (in the form of Node). I still maintain some old Perl code, but I'd never consider using it for anything new.

And I've looked into Perl 6 occasionally over the years, and I see nothing to attract me back. Sure, it addresses some of the problems of the ageing Perl 5, but there's nothing to make it stand out from the crowd, nothing to attract new developers to the language, or to bring old ones back. And despite what you say, it *is* a competition, because the health of an ecosystem is very much a function of how large that ecosystem is - and much like Python 3 did, Perl 6 starts out on zero.

[Michael_S]

I wish the Perl community the best of luck. I hadn't touched Perl in fifteen years until I was given a side project at work last month. The little script I had to use was nicely written and documented, and it was a pleasure.

In terms of the language features and adoption rate, Perl6 tries hard to offer everything to everyone but without repeating the design mistakes of earlier Perl dialects. So no abuse of implicit variables, less syntax wackiness, but also the ability to operate in a fully functional and immutable way, or with type checking everywhere, or with object orientation everywhere, or in plain old procedural code, any combination of those things you want. The designers have said they're trying to design a language for the next 40 years, and I think it's a great attempt.

[abraxxa]

This is certainly needed for me, as I primarily do database work, and there is no DBI for Perl 6 ( there is a DBI-like library with drivers for a handful of databases ).

Take a look at DBIish which is heavy worked one by multiple people, myself on DBDish::Oracle which is on github.

I'm a Perl 5 coder for over 15 years and the changes in Perl 6 are comparable to switching to a different language like Python or Ruby if not even bigger because it has so many features. Personally the async features using multiple threads are the most attractive improvements for me so far as I do network monitoring and automatization and this will make scalability much easier than getting multiple different async modules working together (which don't use threads but forking).