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Perl 5.6.0 Out
brockgr was the first to note that Perl 5.6.0 has been released and has begun propagating through
CPAN. Anyone have a changelog or something I can link to?
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While I would like to believe this, I strongly suspect its not true. Bjarne Stroustrup has shown no remorse for inflicting the disaster that is C++ upon the world. Indeed, you could argue that Larry Wall was merely the unwitting victim of a hacker culture that values the "quick and dirty hack" over the "spend some time thinking about it" approach. Unless you are a total moron (like the majority of Slashdot readers) you will realise that theoretically sound languages such as Modula-3 and Smalltalk are the wave of the future. You either have TRUE strong typing (as in M3) or you GET RID OF TYPING ALLTOGETHER (as in Smalltalk). The half-assed fence-sitting characterised by C++ and Perl is typical of the shoddy thinking of many so-called computer experts (Stroustrup and Wall in particular).
Now, of course I hate Perl and C++ as much as the next guy, but what I find more worrying is the underlying agenda of moral relativism implicit in Perl's slogan "there's more than one way to do it". It starts off with allowing the coder to use an associative array or a list, but eventually it will serve as a "gateway language" to even more screwed up languages such as TCL and Java, and from there onto "alternative" lifestyles, body piercing and fringe politics like Socialism.
While banning Perl superficially seems like a very attractive solution to the problem, look deeper and you will see this is not the answer. Banning Perl will simply drive it underground, and make it all the more attractive to young impressionable coders. Far better to educate these youngsters that there are safer alternatives out there, and they won't be labelled as "square" for using them. After all, who is more "cool" - the ravaged and weary Perl addict slumped over his poorly documented spaghetti code that looks like line noise, or the bright eyed and alert young coder with his clear and easily understood Python source ?
thank you.
The reason the last one was so bad was to clear the way for easy inclusion and cohabitation of future versions. Adding 5.6 to Debian unstable should now be a simple matter of uploading new packages, so I'd expect we'll see it as soon as the perl maintainer gets them built... hopefully very soon. :)
Its not quite a changelog, but the vast bulk of the info that people want is here .
I fear the next perl upgrade... I mean, I don't think it'll be as bad as the last (hopefully, they'll have learned something from the last one) but one can never know. Damn...
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
#!/usr/bin/perl
BEGIN {
unless(eval "require 5.6") {
print "Watcha waiting for? Upgrade to 5.6!\n"
}
}
END {
print "Another useless program by EraseMe\n";
}
Of course, the Perl equivalent of the 4 Mb of Python code take only 30 lines, giving it the image of a "quick hack and text processing" language not capable of doing "full-blown applications".
I sincerely hope you're kidding. It's annoying that Perl can't be brought up without people screaming PYTHON!, but it's just as annoying to see people posting blind endorsements of Perl.
I view Python as a syntactically cleaner Perl, with a somewhat functional bent. I think that a program could be accomplished in roughly the same amount of code in either languge. Personally I find that Perl's dogma of TMTOWTDI allows me to get away with things that come back and haunt me later.
All these language wars really come down to personal preference, and no amount of arguing is going to change that. For some people Perl is better because it fits how they think & program. For some people it might be Python.
I think they both suck, and everyone should program in either C or LISP. So learn to deal with the fact that people have different opinions without acting like an idiot.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Moderators, why is that flamebait?
Anyway, here are some of the reasons I like perl:
(Disclaimer: have not used Python perhaps it has these features)
*Regexps- Perl has an extremely complete regexp syntax built in, allowing you to do in one line what can take a dozen lines in Java or C.
*scalars- Although it is conceptually strange, perl's use of a single "scalar" data type
(as opposed to string, int, and float) makes life a lot easier when you're doing something like writing a cgi script.
*Hashes- Hashes kick ass, and perl has them built-in using a simple, straightforward syntax. There are some jobs that are made extremely simple with hashes, and would be extremely difficult without them.
*Arrays- No, arrays are not unique to perl, but perl makes better use of them than most other languages. In particular, the foreach command and the various ways of manipulating them is nice.
*Syntactic sugar- Perl is very un-picky about things like parenthesis, and has a number of ways to input and format data, including string interpolation, the qw() command, the => syntax, etc.
No, perl is not the best language if you're building a large software project, but that's not what it's designed for. It doesn't handle complex data types because it's a scripting language, and it's designed to deal with text. It does a damn good job of simple text manipulation. For the things it's designed for, it can turn a page of code into just a few lines. And yes the object oriented syntax needs a lot of work.
And you're right about perl being rather cryptic. I love writing reqexps that look like line noise. It makes me feel 3l337.
which of the two sites.
I was just reading through it all again,
And here's some highlights, in my opinion:
An Intel VP
confessed on the stand to a more serious infraction of Oregon's
computer crime law. And the Washington County D.A.'s office, which so
eagerly talked tough when facing the powerless Randal, has observed a
demure silence on this topic.
* No evidence that Intel disapproved of Randal's behavior exists,
except as remembered after the decision was made to prosecute
him. Not so much as a hand-written note indicates anyone had a
problem with Randal beforehand.
* In other contexts, Intel had previously authorized Randal to
commit both the acts allegedly unauthorized in this instance:
cracking passwords and building a gateway to the Internet.
The prosecutor: "I don't represent Intel." The judge: "Not yet."
The Associated Press: "Intel Corp. is handing the local
police $100,000 to have two detectives concentrate their
computer theft efforts at the company."
Randal Schwartz was working as a contractor at Intel, and ran into a situation where he cracked some passwords as a matter of expediency. He reported the bad passwords to Intel (this is how he was "caught"). This was somewhat embarrassing to a certain VP of Intel, who was using the password "vicepresident". Intel then engaged in one of the ugliest, most pointless, displays of corporate muscle flexing I've ever heard of: they prosecuted Randal using some very screwy laws peculiar to Oregon.
Lessons to be learned:
There's another good website on the subject (the "Friends of Randal Schwartz") here:
State of Oregon vs Randal Schwartz computer security case
See the perldelta doc at search.cpan.org
Until you get moderation points why don't you keep your moderating opinions to yourself.
/. uses Perl, but what else does?
When, I get moderation points is exactly the time I do keep my moderating opinions to myself; then I just moderate. Since I don't have any, it is at least as valid to commment on the fact that the post was OT as it was to answer 'Python!' to a question about whether Perl is capable of something. This is very very common in threads dealing with Perl, and it gets old.
If you don't like it, have you metamoderated today?
?? What does that have to do with offtopic posts?
I see you are spamming across all replies to a particular thread.
Two replies. Both answering 'Python' to Perl questions. Spam is unsolicited E-mail. I wasn't sending E-mail, and if it was unsolicited, so were the OT replies being discussed here. At least I didn't use my +1 bonus to do it.
Just a suggestion, if you view in threads mode, you don't have to dig into a discussion that you are not interested in.
You mean the discussion labeled: 'Usefullness of Perl?' I'm interested in that; isn't that where people talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Perl?
In fact here's the original question (in part):
Can anyone provide me with a good argument for using Perl or provide some examples of where Perl is used? I know
and the followup:
Is there a limit to the size of an application you would write in Perl? What I'm getting at is could I drop C++ and write all my applications in Perl or is it better suited for quick hacks and data massaging?
I'm sorry but there is no opening for Python there unless this really is a general discussion about the relative merits of different languages.
If the two replies in question had perhaps changed their subject lines to match the content of their postings I probably wouldn't have said anything, and threaded mode would have been of some use.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Funny, I could say the same thing about your posts.
;-)
True. Which is why I labeled them as such in the subjects.
Twice I have counted, in one glimpse of your page, you bitching and moaning like a teenage ho0r because someone happened to mention python.
Hmmm... I thought I said it pretty low-key, I even posted without a +1 keep the thread low-profile. Oh, well I guess I'll tone it down next time
Get over your friggin ego trip foo!
Ummm... how do you define ego trip here? Criticism?
Someone asked a question about perl, and someone answered it.
Who answered it? Not the replies I criticized; #75 and #132 below were the ones who addressed the question and I didn't get up in arms about the mention of Python there...
Chris
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Rob,
The Changes file is 1.4MB, not really practical to post here.
what am I saying? now some KW is going to try. I hope there is a good size limitation on comments
chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
When I'm in hackermode, I use elvis 'cause it doesn't try to shove ideology down my throat. But ocassionally there comes the time when I need to massive, bloated and overloaded monstrosity to edit a memo and do my dishes simultaneously. When that time comes I don't use emacs. Instead I turn to XEmacs! Just a big, but copyrighted by a defunct corporation.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Yeah, for sufficient values of "new". Perl 5.005 could do that. Noone used it though...
-- Abigail
-- Abigail
Of course, the Perl equivalent of the 4 Mb of Python code take only 30 lines, giving it the image of a "quick hack and text processing" language not capable of doing "full-blown applications".
-- Abigail
This is actually quite cool. Theyove gone from finite-state automata to push-down automata. Anyone have money on when Perl will be able to handle Turing machines (and hence perform any Von Neumann-computable operation) within its 'regexps'?
Perl is so cool...
mybox$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.6.0 built for i686-linux
Copyright 1987-2000, Larry Wall
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5.0 source kit.
Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using `man perl' or `perldoc perl'. If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Page.
Installation is identical to earlier versions, no differences. Didn't attempt to use the same Policy.sh, though.
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
Though I'm not on the team, I think the main reason for their change in notation is because they now can version correctly.
Previously the notation was "%d.%0.3d_%0.3d". This becomes a floating point ( underscores are ignored in numeric values ). It was a hack to allow sub-minor versioning. There is now a new versioning symantic as follows:
"v5.6.7"
The "v" prefix tells it that it's a multi-dot number. Basically it just converts to the equiv asci values ( thus I think you're limited to 255 per dot ).
But we can now say
require v5.6.2.1 if we were so inclined. Thus, the left padded zeros are of no further value.
-Michael
-Michael
*New versioning representation for modules ( v1.2.3.4 ).
...
:]] character classes supported.
More portible ( though still experimental ) multi-threading model. Contains seperate interpreters per thread. ( old model is still available through compilation flags )
Incrementally better warning messages
-W option to replace -w ( provides even more debugging info )
*Enhancement of POD modules and joining with getopt to allow a help argument to dump the POD directly.
*New "our" keyword, which is like my but for global variables ( replaces "use vars qw(foo bar)" with "our ( $foo, $bar )" ). The advantage is when specifying data-types for global variables.
UTF-8 support ( blah )
More direct use of subroutine attributes
was:
sub foo {
use attrs qw( method locked );
}
Now:
sub foo : method locked {
}
Optimization of qw( foo bar zap ). Now performs split at compile time instead of run-time.
*Auto file-handles
open my $handle, "file.txt";
Generates a file handle automagically.
*open() now accepts a 3'rd argument ( file-mod )
*Binary symantic: 0b01010101010
Better 64 bit support
Optimized sort { block } @data.
Allows sort to act like a function call for the following:
sub foo($$) { $_[0] $_[1] }
And
sort $coderef @array;
allowed
File globs are more consistent.
New "CHECK" block, which acts like the "END" block, except is called at the end of compilation.
pack enhancements included template comments ( like reg-exes )
*Weak references. Thus you can cache objects without fear of memory leaks ( or have c-style trees or doublly linked lists )
exists and delete now function on array elements.
Better typed class support with fields::new().
Reg Ex:
POSIX [[:
More convinient Benchmark module.
Several CPAN modules are now part of the basic distribution.
-Michael
-Michael
And even better. The new regexp feature seems more generic than a simple balanced token matcher. I mean, it could match things like (matching text in bold):
I've never tried this mind you. From the example on the reference page I would guess that this was fairly simple to accomplish though. Oh joy. Try to do that with any other regexp engine."There's more than one way to do it" should not be confused with "lax" in the negative sense - to most of us who scoff at "bondage" languages like Java, this flexibility is key.
which in turn encourages programmers to use poor algorithims and data structures.
Uh-huh. Besides the fact that sorting and hashes are built-in and their implementations obscured?
It is in fact impossible to write structured code in Perl
Don't project your coding inadequacies onto us. If you'd prefer Gosling and Co. to dictate style to you, enjoy. Some of us like freedom.
Quite frankly, the best solution to the problem of Perl (and worse, Perl progammers) is to simply ban it
blah blah blah...and off into troll country you go. Thanks for playing.
Think about the fact that C is extremely close to perl in many ways - both are paradigm-agnostic, and both implement a struct/pointer model as the highest abstraction for user types. Perl's object model is completely is nothing more than references and packages, which is completely analogous to the C model, only at a slightly higher level.
C and Perl have nothing to do with Java in any way that is meaningful. Java is a single paradigm language.
M3's only claim to fame is to be part of the FreeBSD base install. Smalltalk? It had its day in the sun, and now its gone. You can "squeak" about is supposed resugence all you want (pun intended), but the truth of the matter is that its all but disappeared from the radar.
LISP is the only "theorectically clean" language to survive over the long haul, and even it is considered fringe thesedays. Bottom line - languages that make you think like a computer don't stand the test of time.
but what I find more worrying is the underlying agenda of moral relativism implicit in...more blah blah blah intellectual masturbation.
No, perl's license and source are open. Java's source and license are not.
Given the drivel in the rest of your post, its amusing how you rant about "the downfall of slashdot".
I don't respond to meaningless trolls. Its called "taking the high ground".
With the exception of the loathsome and brainless Tom Christiansen
...
This is because it is a worthless language
...
you're a mindless moron yammering
Nice trolls. Actually, they aren't really imaginative or even amusing.
Ooops - precompiler error - you had no valid points.
Don't flatter yourself - this troll war isn't hurting anyone's pride, least of which mine.
They might be slow as molasses, but they certainly have made more mature design decisions than you-know-who.
By the way, how is that ANSI-standard Perl coming?
The fact that it is open source obviates the need for an ANSI standard - the reference is the implementation, which is open, and your ability to deviate from this reference is clearly spelled out in the Artistic license.
C's flexibility comes from the fact that its so darn small. You're free to implement C in any number of paradigms you see fit, from functional to OO.
Uh-huh. I can keep trolling as long as you can.
Hmmmm. The site in question is a little unclear, and I hope they will clarify things soon. I thought the release candidates were patches on 5.005_670, and that the actual release would be called 5.6.0. What is on the CPAN sites is "perl-5.6.0.tar.gz" and it has no qualification.
I plan to wait for a clearer message from the developers, but what I see on the perl.com sites seems to point to this being the actual release.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Computeri non cogitant, ergo non sunt
The change log is available here.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
A quick visit to http://www.perl.com reveals that what has just been released is Release Candidate 3, which is still beta. Close, but still beta.
-- Jim
-- Jim
If in doubt, use a bigger hammer!
He was convicted of three felony counts of computer crimes against his employers a few years back. Here's a page with details.
To put it mildly, many hackers thought Randal was the victim in the whole affair... but read, and decide for yourself.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Yes. subs now can have an attribute list, including attributes for thread safety, and lvalueness.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Just in case anyone was wondering, they went from Perl 5.005 to Perl 5.6 because they didn't want to release this as 5.006 as they figured many people may not understand the large significance of this release...
:)
/me waits eagerly for a woody deb.
EraseMe
As an aside, mod_perl 1.22 has been updated to work with Perl 5.6 (it was released last Wednesday). From the changelog:
compile fixes for 5.6 + -Duse5005threads
[Lincoln Stein ]
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
It's not the changelog per se, but What New in Perl 5.6 might be of interest.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton