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Perl 6 In Time For Next Christmas?
An anonymous reader writes Larry Wall has reportedly announced at Fosdem that "Perl 6 Developers will attempt to make a development release of Version 1.0 of Perl 6.0 in time for his 61st Birthday this year and a Version 1.0 release by Christmas 2015." From the article: "There is going to be the inevitable discussions, comments and probably some mileage from detractors to come. However ever were it so, for us in the Perl Community these are quite exciting times. We have two strong languages and a strong community, I think there is a lot that binds us together so here's looking forward to Christmas."
That's the funniest thing I've read today. We're talking about a language that has 82 ways to say a = a + 1, 81 of which are completely, gobbletygookly incomprehensible (and look like cartoon swearing) to the average (non-brain damaged) programmer. The FACT is, the language is deliberately designed to reward the cuteseypoo "I (self) graduated from VisualBasic, and I'm WAY cleverer than the rest of you", combined with the "this is a contract job, and I've never ever ever had to maintain somebody else's code" effect, produces the worst, most unreadable, most unmaintainable code on the planet. Get the average Perl programmer, point a .357 magnum at their heads, and ask them to modify something they wrote six months ago, and watch the bloody hilarity ensue.