Anonymous Coward writes "I'm sure I'm not the first to report this, but Perl.com put up a synopsis of Larry Wall's annual report on the state of Perl. "
Re:Will Perl 6 be too big a change?
by
Frater+219
·
· Score: 4
If you already know Perl fairly well, you shouldn't have too much trouble learning Perl 6. Besides, how can you expect to just learn just one programming and language and end there? The nature of this profession is that you are constantly learning new things.
Already knowing Perl 4/5, Scheme, C, shell, AppleScript, and C-64 BASIC "fairly well", I don't imagine I would have all that much trouble picking up Python, OCaml, Ruby, Emacs LISP, or Fortran 90, either. I might have some trouble with Intercal, Befunge, or Object COBOL, though. *chuckle* My point is that by gratuitously abandoning large swaths of Perl 5 syntax, Perl 6 would thereby abandon Perl users' existing Perl expertise. That makes it less attractive, not more, to Perl users who are already considering taking up another language.
It seems to me that people don't like being abandoned -- or, more precisely, won't like hitting themselves on the forehead every once in a while and saying "D'oh! Can't do that in this new Perl!"
Also, Perl is in need of some major changes ie the OO portion of it. I really like Perl, but the current OO implementation feels more like a hack than anything. Not near as elegant as say Python's OO feature.
That's for sure. I've been taking a close look at Python the past week or two, and it seems to handle object-orientation (and libraries in general) rather more pleasantly than Perl 5 does. I've still got some reservations regarding its string and regexp operations, but I'm seriously considering doing my next few minor projects in Python.
(Pythoneers: My chief reservations have to do with immutable strings; and with the greater number of hoops one must jump through to use a regexp, as compared with Perl's =~ operator. It also strikes me as weird that a deliberately "clean" language overloads the % operator to implement what everyone else calls sprintf(). Oh, and while I'm gritching, how about a lambda operator without the limitations?)
I would really hate to see Python overtake Perl as the interpreted language of choice; therefore, I support any changes that need to be done.
See, I don't really understand that sentiment. Why is the popularity of Python (or Ruby, or OCaml, or Emacs LISP) something to fear or "hate to see"? If the development of Perl goes a way I don't think is conducive to my use, then of course I'm going to find new tools. If you like Perl 6, by all means use it; I'm just saying that the weirder it is compared to Perl 5, the fewer folks will go along for the ride.
As you can see, the syntax is non-threatning even to the most novice of programmers and is very intuitive.
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
-- this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Re:Is Perl losing its Perliness?
by
The+Cunctator
·
· Score: 5
No, you're not alone. It's certainly a bold stroke--resembles the Apple migration to OS X. I'm hesitant, but I am pretty trustful of Larry Wall and I'm not too tied to syntax to have my brain collapse at such a drastic change. Change is necessary--and if done with intelligence, even drastic change can be good.
But with this one, definitely only time will tell.
After sifting through the overcommented, underhabitated (at least for intellegent life) areas of Slashdot, Luke and CmdrKnbi sped away from contents.pl, across the surface of the search.pl riding Larry Wall's traslation routines. CmdrKnbi had Luke stop at the edge of the code block, overlooking the vast query ?topic=perl.
"The Perl comments section," said CmdrKnbi. "You will never find a more wretched hive of trolls and Python aficionados. We must be cautious."
-- /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Is Perl losing its Perliness?
by
isomeme
·
· Score: 5
Having read this summary and both Apocalypses, and as a long-time and ardent Perl user, I must say I'm profoundly uneasy about where Larry is taking Perl 6. Many, many of the proposed changes (for example, the -> ~ . operator modifications mentioned in the article) will both break virtually all existing Perl code, and require fairly fundamental relearning by Perl coders. And yes, I know there's a planned kludge to use syntax to grandfather in P5 modules, but it's ugly and doesn't cover main programs).
My question is, why? Why mess with so much of Perl? Why break backwards-compatibility across the board? If Larry wants to create a new language, he should go for it, and I'd probably be eager to try it out. But with Perl 6, he seems to be creating a new language and calling it Perl, which strikes me as the worst possible path.
Am I alone in feeling this way?
--
-- When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Just as long as nobody needs to throw mugs up against the wall during their speeches!
Regular expressions are very powerful. I'm glad to see that Larry is making good decisions regarding these.
It's funny. It seems that everybody wants Perl to be more like Ruby or more like Python. Don't they realize that they can just use Ruby or Python? I have professional experience with all three of these languages and I can say that they all provide benefits, leading to a situation where it comes down to the right tool for the right job. I'm afraid that Larry is attempting to turn Perl into something that it isn't. a Jack-of-all-trades-yet-master-of-none which isn't good.
--
Keeping/. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Already knowing Perl 4/5, Scheme, C, shell, AppleScript, and C-64 BASIC "fairly well", I don't imagine I would have all that much trouble picking up Python, OCaml, Ruby, Emacs LISP, or Fortran 90, either. I might have some trouble with Intercal, Befunge, or Object COBOL, though. *chuckle* My point is that by gratuitously abandoning large swaths of Perl 5 syntax, Perl 6 would thereby abandon Perl users' existing Perl expertise. That makes it less attractive, not more, to Perl users who are already considering taking up another language.
It seems to me that people don't like being abandoned -- or, more precisely, won't like hitting themselves on the forehead every once in a while and saying "D'oh! Can't do that in this new Perl!"
That's for sure. I've been taking a close look at Python the past week or two, and it seems to handle object-orientation (and libraries in general) rather more pleasantly than Perl 5 does. I've still got some reservations regarding its string and regexp operations, but I'm seriously considering doing my next few minor projects in Python.
(Pythoneers: My chief reservations have to do with immutable strings; and with the greater number of hoops one must jump through to use a regexp, as compared with Perl's =~ operator. It also strikes me as weird that a deliberately "clean" language overloads the % operator to implement what everyone else calls sprintf(). Oh, and while I'm gritching, how about a lambda operator without the limitations?)
See, I don't really understand that sentiment. Why is the popularity of Python (or Ruby, or OCaml, or Emacs LISP) something to fear or "hate to see"? If the development of Perl goes a way I don't think is conducive to my use, then of course I'm going to find new tools. If you like Perl 6, by all means use it; I'm just saying that the weirder it is compared to Perl 5, the fewer folks will go along for the ride.
Perl is actually a very logical language to use to teach beginners. Start out gradual, like:
$a = "hello world\n";
print "$a";
From there, even the casual beginner can progress to (code excerpt taken from slashcode):
($p{$_})&6];$p{$_}=/ ^$P/ix?$P:close$_}keys%p}p;map{$p{$_}=~/^[P.]/&&
close$_}%p;wait until$?;map{/^r/&&}%p;$_=$d[$q];sleep rand(2)if/\S/;print
As you can see, the syntax is non-threatning even to the most novice of programmers and is very intuitive.
w00t w00t i g0t r00t w00t w00t w00t
5 more seconds to go
w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t
------------
a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
But with this one, definitely only time will tell.
--
--
Make mine methylphenidate.
What is this "perl"? I looked all over Microsoft's website and I couldn't find where to download it. Must only be available to beta testers.
*duck*
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
"The Perl comments section," said CmdrKnbi. "You will never find a more wretched hive of trolls and Python aficionados. We must be cautious."
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
My question is, why? Why mess with so much of Perl? Why break backwards-compatibility across the board? If Larry wants to create a new language, he should go for it, and I'd probably be eager to try it out. But with Perl 6, he seems to be creating a new language and calling it Perl, which strikes me as the worst possible path.
Am I alone in feeling this way?
--
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Regular expressions are very powerful. I'm glad to see that Larry is making good decisions regarding these.
It's funny. It seems that everybody wants Perl to be more like Ruby or more like Python. Don't they realize that they can just use Ruby or Python? I have professional experience with all three of these languages and I can say that they all provide benefits, leading to a situation where it comes down to the right tool for the right job. I'm afraid that Larry is attempting to turn Perl into something that it isn't. a Jack-of-all-trades-yet-master-of-none which isn't good.
Keeping
There is also an MP3 of the talk available from Nat Torkington, Perl 6 project leader and organizer of the Open Source Conference.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.