What is Perl 6?

chromatic writes "Perl.com has a new article entitled What is Perl 6?. It analyzes the changes to the language in light of the good and bad points of Perl 5 and provides new information about the current state of the project: Perl 6 exists, you can write code in it today, and it's more consistent and easier to use than Perl 5."

unfortunately

[caffeinemessiah]

You can never be told what Perl is.
You just have to see it for yourself.

sorry, i just had to.

What is perl?

[Anonymous Coward]

Baby don't hurt me,
Don't hurt me
No more

Re:unfortunately

[EnsilZah]

Heh, yeah.
And once you see what the code looks like, you'll be willing to betray your friends and family to forget you ever knew about it.

What is Perl 6?

[Rob_Ogilvie]

I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Re:No language that I like better

[patio11]

Perl taught me C++

Somewhere, a maintenance programmer just slit his wrists.

Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

It's what clueless people who haven't already migrated to Ruby will be using soon.

http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ [ruby-lang.org]

Q. What is Perl 6?

[dazlari]

A.Two Kiwi oysters going at it.

WHOOPITUPTITUDE!

[reidman]

From TFA:

Not everyone who starts learning Perl for whipituptitude needs manipulexity right away, if ever, but having a tool that supports both is amazingly useful.

Whipituptitude?!

That is awesome. Made up words a--

Whats this? Manipulexity?

How much awesome can you cram into a single sentence?

Hiring here.

[Tei]

Hello.

We need 5 years experience Perl 6 programmers for 3D game. Reference: P6DNF.

Re:WHOOPITUPTITUDE!

[ceeam]

Give them a break, they are Perl programmers after all. ;)

Meditations on Perl 6

[starX]

If the release of Perl 5 was any indication, Perl 6 is the single magic bullet that will kill all of my (Perl) code.

Perl 6 may be more akin to a divine programming language, which makes the implimentation of complex data structures simple and sublime. Then again, it could all be a nasty trick to lead us away from the true path of enlightenment.

Perl 6 is not .NET.

Perl 6 is not controlled by any major corporation; I haven't decided whether this is advantageous or not yet.

If I were to have a child, would it be written in Perl 6?

Can Perl 6 be used to unlock the secret mysteries of the Bible code to reveal the end times?

Is Perl 6 really being developed by the descendants of Jesus Christ? Is the Pope trying to cover it up? Does the Pope know what Perl is? If so, is using Perl 5 a sin? How about Perl 6?

I bought a preview book on Perl 6 a few years ago. Is it still useful? Can I have my money back?

If Ruby was an upgrade to Perl, and Perl 6 is a an upgrade to Perl and Ruby, will Ruby need to changes their name in such a way as to play off of Ruby Tuesdays?

If I enter the Perl 6, can I change my mind later?

If Perl 6 is brillian, but no one uses it, is it still brilliant? What if it's awful and everyone uses it?

So very tired....

Re:unfortunately

[value_added]

You can never be told what Perl is.
You just have to see it for yourself.

Is this [thiesen.org] what you saw?

Re:My short experience with perl...

[Russellkhan]

That's the first time I've ever seen or heard anyone say that Lisp didn't have enough parentheses!

Rewrite

[PhotoGuy]

I hear Duke Nukem Forever is being rewritten in Perl 6.

Re:What is Perl 6?

[beef3k]

Last I heard it was a long forgotten dialect of Klingon.

Re:The funny thing is...

[LarsWestergren]

... that they all spell that "whipituptitude" differently. Look for yourself:

        * In TFA1: whipituptitude
        * In TFA2 referenced from TFA1: whipuptitude


With Perl, there is always more than one way to spell it.

Obligatory Muppets Quote

[cheezemonkhai]

The question is "What is Perl 6"?

The Question is "Who Cares"

Re:WHOOPITUPTITUDE!

[maxwell demon]

Well, that's the inventixibility of Perl programmers. :-)

Re:No language that I like better

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Another is swallowing a bullet, while a third fell on his sword. There's more than one way to do yourself in!

Re:WHOOPITUPTITUDE!

[whterbt]

I don't see what the problem is. They're perfectly cromulent words.

Re:unfortunately

[Julian Morrison]

That's almost right, except that it doesn't quite capture the depth of wierdness. Lets label that beastie a "knuffle". The picture shows one regular sized knuffle, and a casual glance shows perl 6 looking rather like that. In truth though it's more like a fractal aggregation of nano-knuffles which can be morphed into more or less anything else. In fact, apart from the initial morphing commands that initiate the change (lets, say, the antlers), it needn't look anything like a knuffle at all. So perhaps you see a python with antlers, or a cup of coffee with antlers. In fact the antlers can be hidden in hardlink magic, so /usr/bin/perl starts out looking like your regular perl 5 camel.

I don't actually disapprove of perl 6. If I were a lot cleverer, I might even be able to understand it. But it's a fearsome and alien creature, and I wouldn't use it to do paying work.