Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

An anonymous reader writes: Last night Larry Wall unveiled the first development release of Perl 6, joking that now a top priority was fixing bugs that could be mistaken for features. The new language features meta-programming — the ability to define new bits of syntax on your own to extend the language, and even new infix operators. Larry also previewed what one reviewer called "exotic and new" features, including the sequence operator and new control structures like "react" and "gather and take" lists. "We don't want their language to run out of steam," Larry told the audience. "It might be a 30- or 40-year language. I think it's good enough."

Comments

Re:Can't find independent verification

[destinyland]

It's a development released (timed to coincide with Larry's birthday in September, according to Wikipedia).

Here's URLs where the event was announced.

http://www.meetup.com/SVPerl/e...

http://perl6releasetalk.ticket...

Re:Perl? LOL.

[Forever Wondering]

perl6 is a complete overhall of the language. It isn't merely perl5++. They are similar, but they aren't compatible, which is why the perl5 interpreter will be maintained in parallel [so stated]. It has a huge number of new features, including real classes [instead of implementing a class as a hash].

The perl6 interpreter [written in perl6, BTW], will be able to run perl5 code (e.g. it hooks on .pm or .pm6, etc.) and run a mix of the two. It will also be able to run python code, ruby, javascript, etc. if one wants to add the front end. So, in some ways, it's like .NET. You can run a program comprised of perl6, perl5, python, C, etc. all coexisting in one program. Also, on the back end, perl6 will generate true byte code, and can generate javascript, python, or other backend languages.

You can also define your own operators (e.g. "nand" for not (x and y), or do full metaprogramming.

perl6 classes can define "how they're implemented" (e.g. implement me as a C struct, python dictionary, javascript hash, or java class, etc.). In other words, if you request a C struct binding, the data will be stored that way. So, you fill in your object, then you can pass it off to a C function without any glue code. In and out, in and out, back and forth, at extreme speed.

perl5 is not my main language (e.g. I make my living writing C code), but I've been coding perl5 for 20 years [and I maintain a codebase of 250,000 lines just for my personal scripts]. I've been following the progress for a few years now and I've been waiting for perl6 to give it a try.

perl6 has ripped off concepts from just about every other language--that's a good thing. Traits, mixins, interfaces(?), multimethods, a full set functional programming operations [like Haskell, Scala, etc.], full set operators [just like python].

What I've described is merely the tip of the iceberg, done from memory of what I was reading a year or two ago.

BTW, in case you didn't already know, slashdot runs on perl5 ...