Damian Conway Publishes Exegesis 5

prostoalex writes "Come gather round Mongers, whatever you code, And admit that your forehead's about to explode, 'Cos Perl patterns induce complete brain overload, If there's source code you should be maintainin', Then you better start learnin' Perl 6 patterns soon, For the regexes, they are a-changin'. This remix of Bob Dylan serves as an epigraph to Exegesis 5."

Comments

Re:Monty Python and the Holy Grail Sinking Castle

[IpalindromeI]

It does kind of feel that way. Since all previous versions have worried much about maintaining backward compatibility, a lot of new stuff has been added without removing the old stuff (merely deprecating it). Because of the "history" behind things. With Perl6, though, they're ripping everything apart and rebuilding it from scratch, using the experience and wisdom that have been gained over the years. What was good and we'd like to keep? What was bad and should be done away with? What was a nice concept but implemented poorly? These are the questions the designers are asking themselves. I think something people are dreading is that since this is a total rewrite, looking more towards Doing It Right than making sure it still works like it used to, there will be much to relearn. But personally I'm glad they decided to do it this way, because it means they can do exciting things, and get rid of annoying things, and not have to worry about the compatibility. In the end, I think it will turn out to be a much cleaner, more consistent, more powerful, and even friendlier Perl. It will be like a breath of fresh air, and each Apocalypse gives more to be excited about.

Let me get this straight

[Camel Pilot]

You are upset that Perl 6 is changing significantly enough that you feel it could be classified as a different language. And you don't want to learn a new language so to solve your dilemma you are going to learn a different language? :)