Slashdot Mirror
Perl 5.14 Released
chromatic writes "Pumpking Jesse Vincent has just released Perl 5.14, the latest stable version of the venerable Perl 5 programming language. The list of changes in Perl 5.14 includes several enhancements, including performance tuning, Unicode improvements, and updates to the core libraries and documentation. Perl 5.16 is on track for a release next April."
Perl makes a GREAT "general-administration" tool. I use it as basically bash++ - it's the best way,bar none, to write programs on the command-line. There's a reason even the ultra-minimalist OpenBSD includes Perl in the default install.
Python 3 is barely different from Python 2. It is not backwards compatible, but I've ported Python 3 programs to Python 2 (when I realized I had to use SciPy or run the code on a system with only Python 2), and nearly the only changes I had to make were changes for // for integer division and required () for print -- and these changes were trivial if I could simply import from __future__. In contrast, Perl 6 is very different from Perl 5.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Excellent troll... really first rate. Did you get federal funding from the Ministry of Trolling for that gem? I've been working professionally in unix/linux environments for about 12 years and believe me perl is still quite alive and well doing real work in lots of different kinds of companies. Php is somewhat painful to code in by comparison but both have their place. Except for java.. it has no sane place but you still find it in use everywhere which just goes to show anything can succeed in this world with enough marketing dollars behind it.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
All I'll say to that is that the entire computing world does not revolve around websites... or programming certification mills. =] Perl is the duct tape that holds the networked world together... and it's not dying any more than actual duct tape is. It's a refined tool used by professionals to do the jobs that have always needed done in a minimum of time and that don't cater to the latest buzz word laden development methodology.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
unless your problem is "what the hell does this code do that i wrote 6 months ago".
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
"I was just going to say that back in about 2001 someone gave me advice not to learn Perl 5 because a Perl 6 release was imminent."
It's a shame that this 'Osborne effect' has hung over Perl for the last decade. I wonder how Perl 5 would now be perceived if Perl 6 had been given a different name and announced as a research project into language development, rather than the next version of Perl? With better PR, Perl 5.10 could easily have been 'Perl 6'.
All this tends to obscure the quet evolution of Perl 5 programming into what 'chromatic' and others are calling 'Modern Perl', using an idiomatic style that takes full advantage of recent language features (some borrowed from Perl 6) and CPAN to write efficient and maintainable code:
http://www.modernperlbooks.com/
http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/
As always, a lot of the most active development is happening outside the core language. Anyone interested in some of the directions Perl 5 is going in today ought to check out projects like these:
http://www.iinteractive.com/moose/
http://plackperl.org/
http://www.catalystframework.org/
http://mojolicio.us/