Damian Conway On Perl 6 and the Philosophy of Programming

M-Saunders writes: Perl 6 has been in development since 2000. So why, 14 years later, hasn't it been released yet? Linux Voice caught up with Damian Conway, one of the architects of Perl 6, to find out what's happening. "Perl 6 has all of the same features [as Perl 5] but with the rough edges knocked off of them", he says. Conway also talks about the UK's Year of Code project, and how to get more people interested in programming.

Re:"The real problem..." he explained

[jez9999]

No. The real problem is that it is not backwards-compatible with Perl 5, making its rate of adoption guaranteed to be almost zero.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

See also: Python 3

syntax

[gbjbaanb]

Now, the problem with that is that it only works if you know the distinction in the syntax. So people coming into Perl get lost in this sea of ampersands and stars and all sorts of other symbols that we use in the language. And until you get past and it sort of goes into your hind brain and it just translates immediately, âah yes, thatâ(TM)s a scalar variableâ(TM), âah yes, thatâ(TM)s a type blah, blah, blahâ(TM), it doesnâ(TM)t make sense. It looks like line noise, and I fully agree.

and he's quite right, because the alternative is COBOL or Visual Basic where every syntax element is spelled out in big words.

There's a reason Windows developers like C# and not VB.NET (even though its the same thing) and that's the syntax. With C# you get to use a few symbols for various bits that are otherwise spelled out in VB. Perl just takes it to the limit - which means you have to understand what those symbols mean, and if you don't it looks like garbage. Which, I guess, C# looks like to my mum.

So in other words: learn your shit guys, you can't criticise perl for looking like crap unless you have taken the time to learn the language. And then you'll think it looks correct.

Re:

[rubycodez]

or even Python 2.6 and Python 2.7, they're different langauges.

that immaturity regarding backward compatibility is the big problem with open source, Linux is even worse with the fluid kernel ABI

Re:syntax

[rubycodez]

wrong, the alternative is not a COBOL or VB like syntax, talk about fallacy of asserting the consequent.

plenty of well designed languages don't have the sigil mess, it's a sign of scatter-brainedness and design by urban sprawl

Re:

[RoccamOccam]

or even Python 2.6 and Python 2.7, they're different langauges.

Hyperbole, much? I don't think that I've had to change any of my thousands and thousands of lines of code to accommodate the move from 2.6 to 2.7 (if I did, it was so minor that I can't remember doing it). Adding features does not make them different languages.

Re:syntax

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Everything you just said is easily explained by:

I refuse to learn it properly.