Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Larry Wall Unveils Perl 6.0.0

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

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."

4 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. It's about time by geekd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went to a presentation at a Unix convention in San Diego in 2000, 15 years ago, where Larry Wall talked at length about Perl 6, and how he was hard at work on it.

    Well, better late than never.

  2. Re:Bugs mistaken as features? by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It gets better, in addition to "comefrom" (OK, "react"), the only branching construct worse than goto, you can change operator precedence. How'd you like to maintain that code?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  3. "First Development Release" ? by murr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If that was the first development release, what on earth was the 2010 release of Rakudo Star?

    The problem with Perl 6 was never a lack of development releases, it's 15 years of NOTHING BUT development releases.

  4. Re:Bugs mistaken as features? by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How'd you like to maintain that code?

    No one would, which sounds like job security to me.