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."

Comments

Re:Betteridge

[fisted]

You really don't need Betteridge to know that Perl 6 isn't going to happen. Really, it's like Perl Forever.

Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[Qzukk]

How's Python 3 adoption coming along? (and they worked so hard to make it forwards and backwards compatible if you remember to put parentheses around your print arguments!)

Re:Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[fisted]

Sorry to break it to you, but perl has use <version>; for a long time now.

That the Python people went about the version bump in about the most ham-fisted way imaginable does not mean that this would somehow be the case for all languages now.

Re:Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[skids]

Also I'll be enjoying (really, not sarcastically) years of using Perl5 and Perl6 in the same file due to the easy integration between the two, replacing that part of Perl5 that was ugly at my leisure, or not, and still having things work.

I really like this language a lot.

Re:Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[Marginal Coward]

... replacing that part of Perl5 that was ugly at my leisure, or not, and still having things work.

I actually did that about 15 years ago. I switched to Python, then transliterated all of my Perl code into it.

BTW, it was remarkable to me at the time that in every case of transliteration, the resulting Python files were smaller in terms of both number of lines and number of bytes. Then I realized that since the two are semantically similar in so many ways, Python's lack of braces was a big advantage in terms of code compactness. To be fair, though, I never was one to pack as much code into a single line of Perl as possible. Which is, of course, why I prefer Python: it was never designed for that sort of thing.

Re:Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[Marginal Coward]

I actually find Python 2.6.x to be nearly perfect. The fact that it won't be getting any new features, only bug fixes, is actually one of its very best features for me.

In contrast, Python 3 has always seemed to me to be Guido indulging himself in whittling down the "Python warts" list. Although Python 3 is objectively better in many ways, the improvements don't seem compelling enough to me to bother to really learn, and porting code to it - even with the help of the automatic conversion tool - likewise doesn't seem worth the trouble. And I still kindda like "print" as a statement.

I do take some satisfaction, though, in the fact that Python 3 became the sort of technical success that Perl 6 never was, and never will be. To be fair, I think Guido drew some important lessons from the Perl 6 debacle, the most important of which was to make changes around the edges rather than try to totally reinvent the language. See Gall's Law:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.

Then again, there was much less need to reinvent Python.

Re:Enjoy years of splitting between 5 and 6

[skids]

To be clear, what I meant to say is, I only have to rewrite those portions I feel like rewriting: you can use Perl 5 from inside a Perl 6 file pretty painlessly these days, as long as you aren't looking for heavy performance or too much complex async. Perl 5 and Perl 6 are considered more "sister languages" than a necessary upgrade, with Perl 5 continued to be maintained and even developed.

Perl is more expressive

[Okian Warrior]

Perl's strength is that it's expressive. It's not a language which is easy to learn or which generates heavily optimized code.

In the demo phase, you're not really worried about performance. The goal is to have something showing as quickly as possible, and not worry too much about how fast it runs, or how much memory it takes. Overspec your demo system for the time being (ie - make it really fast and install lots of memory), and once you have a reasonable interface go back and recode it in a simpler language which can be more easily optimized.

Languages which are simple to learn (c++, for example) are generally not very expressive. You end up spending tons of time debugging issues of memory allocation, library interface details, and datatype conversion.

Expressive languages are harder to learn, but any individual line in the expressive language does a lot more. Since you are writing fewer lines, and since the fewer lines do more, you end up making programs more easily and in less time.

Yes, the programs will execute a little slower, but as mentioned, this is not important in the demo stage. Your productivity will be much higher. And there are lots of places where performance simply doesn't matter. Scripts usually fall into this category.

Perl was designed by a linguist, not an engineer. As such, it's harder to learn (it's got tons more keywords and context), but once you get the hang of it coding is much more efficient. The following single line:

@Lines = sort { $a->{Name} cmp $b->{Name} } @Lines;

unfolds into several lines of C++, plus a subroutine definition with datatype definitions. The following line:

@Files = <c:/Windows/*.exe>;

can be implemented using one of over a dozen possible library calls in C++, but is builtin in perl. You don't have to look up the library call interface specific to your system.

And note that writing unreadable/unmaintainable code is an aspect of the *coder*, not the language. If you disregard perl because "other people use it to write poorly" you are probably one of those people, in which case you should avoid coding altogether.

Re: Perl is more expressive

[Anonymous Coward]

std::sort(lines.begin(), lines.end(), [](auto &l, auto &l2) { return l1.name l2.name; });

Pretty simple in c++14 as well

Re:Perl is more expressive

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

And note that writing unreadable/unmaintainable code is an aspect of the *coder*, not the language.

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.

Re:Perl is more expressive

[dskoll]

I think it's the contract jobs that produce bad code. My company produces commercial software mostly written in Perl. It's been under development for 15 years and the code base is quite readable and easy to understand. That's because the programmers are not contract programmers and they have sufficiently good taste and motivation to avoid the worst of Perl's cuteness. You can write readable, maintainable Perl. It just takes a lot of work.

Of course, that applies to any other programming language as well.

Re:Perl is more expressive

[Marginal Coward]

Perl was designed by a linguist, not an engineer.

Now you've got me wondering: was Esperanto designed by an engineer, not a linguist?

Re:Perl is more expressive

[phantomfive]

Languages which are simple to learn (c++, for example) are generally not very expressive.

This is the first time I've ever heard someone say C++ is easy to learn. I've been programming in it for years and I still don't feel entirely confident.

Re:Perl is more expressive

[Wee]

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.

Funny you mention it. Not an hour ago, I added some stuff to a perl script I wrote in 2009. It's not a large script (barely 1,000 lines), but my 150-line addition didn't seem to cause any great mirth or merriment.

If you write shit code, you're writing shit code. The choice of language doesn't matter, aside from the insignificant notion that perl might give you more ways to write that shit code differently than some languages.

-B

Re:Betteridge

[BarbaraHudson]

Maybe it will happen, but by then everyone reading this today will be 61+.

Adoption is going to be slow. The current perl is like XP with one important difference - it's still being distributed.

over a decade of hard work at getting it right

[raymorris]

From a decade ago until now, the Perl devs have spent those ten years improving upon what you either misunderstood or are exaggerating for comedic effect.

Java was rushed out quickly, and early versions of Java made that obvious. Perl6 is the opposite - they've taken all the time needed to perfectly implement their vision, to make it exactly what it's supposed to be. Not everything is nail, so a hammer isn't the right tool for every job, but Perl6 is a mighty fine hammer. If you have a task well suited to what Perl6 is made for, it's a fine tool for the job.

Re:What are they doing?

[grcumb]

They've been working at Perl 6 for - what? Ten years now? In that time one can develop an OS from scratch. What's Perl going to do? Give you minty fresh breath all day long and unlimited sex with multiple, highly-desirable partners of your choice?

No, that was Perl5. Perl6 is all of that, with Asian twins.

... oh, and regular expression grammars, but hey: Asian twins!

Perl lets me do what I want

[duckgod]

I look forward to seeing what Perl 6 brings. However, I can't imagine it makes any improvements on the core reason I use Perl5. Perl puts no restrictions on how I program and I am able to get something running by myself faster than any other language.

I am an adult and when I am programming for my own enjoyment I don't want to be told how I have to program. I definitely don't want to have to worry about squeezing my design into some Object Oriented bullshit. I want to tabulate my code the way I feel best. If I want to enjoy some dynamic variable scoping so be it. Mix up some functional with some procedural go for it. Create some cryptic one liner that I won't understand later, live and learn.

Bonus points for still serving its original purpose stellarly. Give me some text and I will mold it to how I want. This is what a majority of commercial software does anyways.

Re:Perl lets me do what I want

[jandrese]

A lot of the wins from Perl6 have already been backported to Perl5. At this point I'm in no rush to switch to Perl6 even if it does come out.

Re:Perl lets me do what I want

[Prof.Phreak]

I'm a huge fan of Perl... Perl5 that is.... I'm just hoping they don't screw up the language with 6. Perl5 works great for me---the few bits of Perl6 that I've seen look akward :-/

Re:Perl lets me do what I want

[skids]

You don;t have to worry -- your Perl 5 code is safe, since there is no directive at all being pushed to "replace" Perl 5 with Perl 6. They will exist as sister languages, won't fight each other when installed together, and there is a thriving Perl 5 community actively developing and maintaining Perl 5 for the forseeable future.

Perl Nukem Forever

[goombah99]

I hear they changed the name.

yes. Ex: some overuse of punctuation removed

[raymorris]

>. Unless Larry took features away

The first thing decided about Perl6 was that some things would go away, meaning you wouldn't have automatic full backward compatibility. Certain constructs that result in a dense line of punctuation marks were an early example.

To be clear, you can now do those things in a more clear, consistent, general and intuitive way - the power wasn't removed, rather special cases and sparse syntax were replaced with concepts that are more generally applicable, using a more clear syntax.

Re:There's more than 1 way to do it?

[dbIII]

Help out with grading student programming projects and you'll see that anything can be a write-only language.

15 years is almost a decade? JVM, .net, JavaScript

[raymorris]

FYI it can target most any virtual machine. Parrot is just one. The JVM is another. For example, Rakudo Perl is a Perl 6 implementation which targets JVM, MoarVM, JavaScript and Parrot.

Hurrah for performance improvements!

[jensend]

With all the work that has been poured into MoarVM, MoarVM Perl 6 is now painfully slow.

This is a tremendous improvement. The best they'd ever managed with Parrot was "abysmally slow." Before that, perl 6 implementations ranged from "diabolically slow" to "the madness-inducing manifestation of the visage of Gn'oguracha, Elder Slug-God of Unspeed."

A typical statement from a recent presentation: "2013.08 was about 3,600x slower than Perl 5. 2014.08 is 34x slower. Better. But still sucks."

If they keep pouring in the effort, eventually they may reach parity with Perl 5, which was simply very slow. It is unlikely they will ever approach the performance of modern javascript engines, which are just plain slow.

Re:really?

[Mr Z]

We actually use Perl quite heavily where I work, and its use is only growing. We've built rather significant pieces of our infrastructure around it, including a rather impressive internal project that uses Perl as a metaprogramming language. You'll get yelled at if you deviate from the standard perl-based development flows we've put in place.

So, "isn't used all that much anymore" may be more anecdotal than not? I guess it really depends on the shop whether perl use is increasing or decreasing.