We think about extensibility a lot. We think about languages we don't know how to think about yet. But leaving spaces in the grammar for new languages is kind of like reserving some of our land for national parks and national forests. Or like an archaeologist not digging up half the archaeological site because we know our descendants will have even better analytical tools than we have.
This quote, and what little I've sampled of Perl 6, reminds me of a few lines from the movie Wonder Boys:
Grady, you know how in class you're always telling us that writers make choices? [...] And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on. And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all.
wherein Larry Wall foresees the future: "I think when the new JavaScript engines come out we'll probably see renewed interest in a JavaScript backend." - December 6, 2007.
Kids learning about computers have a slightly different set of problems to solve than programmers being paid to program. The hard part of programming is integrating with the real world; DrScheme solves that problem by making its own world.
I'm a python programmer and this article really makes me interested in Perl. The only problem is that Perl 6 haven't shipped yet in more then 4 years since this article was written, have it?
Perl 5 has nothing to do with Perl 6 development or even releases. Even after Perl 6 is released Perl 5 will still continue to evolve and grow.
At the moment Perl 6 specification gives a good evolution map for Perl 5 development. So you need not to have to ever worry about Perl 6.
Perl 5 is a solid language in itself. Perl has been amazingly useful since almost 25 years now. And anybody who denies this is simply trolling. Its useful for almost anything to everything. From scripting, to application development, to prototyping to building reliable applications in any domain.
Perl adapts to nearly every programming paradigm out there. Object oriented, functional, declarative you say it Perl has it. Its amazingly flexible, easy to learn and extensible.
You also get to benefit from the community experience and knowledge accumulated over years. You get the power of CPAN. There are also amazing resources to learn Perl.
Its a tool that you will never stop being in love with.
Those of us who have used Perl and pushed its boundaries to get amazing stuff done over years, even now can't write down words to describe its greatness. We can only tell you how great it is, but when you see it yourself you will know it.
But the position of any new Perl programmer is enviable to say at the least. He stands at the gates of a city which is going to take him to places he has never seen and experiences he has never been through. Most of them are going to change his life for ever.
If you're interested, skim through Modern Perl [0].I really like this description from this Amazon review [1]:
"I had a hard time characterizing this wonderful book. It explains the fundamentals, but it's not an introductory book like Learning Perl. It covers almost every feature of the Perl 5 language, but it's not a reference book like Programming Perl. It explains common idioms, but it's not a guide to Perl 5 fluency like Effective Perl Programming. It contains many practical suggestions, but it's not a book of tips like Perl Hacks.
I can only describe it as a "textbook". If I had to pick a single book to teach Perl 5, this is the one I'd choose. As I read it, I was reminded of the first time I read K&R (C Programming Language) and how much learning was packed into it. (It's the only college programming text I still have). In a slim 250 pages, Modern Perl obsoletes most of my shelf of Perl 5 books. It's not intended for a complete novice to programming (any more than K&R was), but in the hands of a competent programmer or a diligent student it will teach everything that one needs to know to write Perl 5 well."
Ignore the semantic games other responses play. If you're asking "Has anyone released an implementation of Perl 6 that's suitable for everyday use by someone who isn't interested in developing Perl 6 itself?", the answer is no.
One of my big takeaways from this article is Larry's view on the history of language. He was quite serious when he compared Ada to English, and I find it really interesting to think about Perl 100 years from now. Will it still be around in some form? Might it be a bigger language than English? Might the notion of a "small" programming language being the ideal be somewhat quaint when a CPU with 4GB of integrated memory dances on the head of a pin?
Anyway, what I'm getting that is 4 years is a pretty short amount of time now that Larry Wall has made me think about it.
I'm not sure there will be an official Perl 6 shipment. I did recently download the February Rakudo Star (which compiles Perl 6 into Parrot VM bytecode), and I've enjoyed playing around with it. Fair disclosure: I've been writing and loving Perl 5 since 1999.
The difficulty right now for anyone from a Perl 5 background who would otherwise jump into Perl 6, is that running your Perl 6 program is really, really slow. I don't know if it's the compile step or execution or something else.
I asked the same question few years ago and the answer back then was "there will never be official Perl 6, anything that implements Perl 6 specification is Perl 6." I don't know about other implementations, but latest Rakudo Star[1] was released just a month ago.
At the risk of being annoying, virtually all the research done in linguistics departments anywhere in the world is research in the cognitive science of language, so a social science, not a humanity. This certainly includes Berkeley around 1970 or so (assuming that's when Wall was there).
You should never "wait" for a programming language. :) I say this as someone who is deeply involved in Perl 6 development.
Learn Perl 5 if you want to learn how a full-featured, complete, and liberating-to-use programming language works.
Check out Perl 6 if you want to see what some of us are building, and if you value ideas as such, even when they haven't all been put together into a finished, polished product.
In my opinion, none of the language will solve the problems with programming or bad programs. The only thing which could help programmers is the way they think of the solution and how they approach to it. Thinking about long term solution for a given problem may help.
An actual tl;dr for this article would be almost as long as the article itself. There's lots of good stuff in there. However, if the length of the article intimidates you, I suggest starting at the sentence before the heading "early binding; late binding". Everything before that is historical perspective -- interesting but not as useful as the rest of the article.
[+] [-] atdt|14 years ago|reply
This quote, and what little I've sampled of Perl 6, reminds me of a few lines from the movie Wonder Boys:
Grady, you know how in class you're always telling us that writers make choices? [...] And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on. And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|14 years ago|reply
(yes, I have nothing to add)
[+] [-] molecule|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sciurus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brlewis|14 years ago|reply
I would think that by 2007 Larry Wall would have seen DrScheme (now DrRacket). You can't get a better onramp than that.
[+] [-] jrockway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] densh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|14 years ago|reply
At the moment Perl 6 specification gives a good evolution map for Perl 5 development. So you need not to have to ever worry about Perl 6.
Perl 5 is a solid language in itself. Perl has been amazingly useful since almost 25 years now. And anybody who denies this is simply trolling. Its useful for almost anything to everything. From scripting, to application development, to prototyping to building reliable applications in any domain.
Perl adapts to nearly every programming paradigm out there. Object oriented, functional, declarative you say it Perl has it. Its amazingly flexible, easy to learn and extensible.
You also get to benefit from the community experience and knowledge accumulated over years. You get the power of CPAN. There are also amazing resources to learn Perl.
Its a tool that you will never stop being in love with.
Those of us who have used Perl and pushed its boundaries to get amazing stuff done over years, even now can't write down words to describe its greatness. We can only tell you how great it is, but when you see it yourself you will know it.
But the position of any new Perl programmer is enviable to say at the least. He stands at the gates of a city which is going to take him to places he has never seen and experiences he has never been through. Most of them are going to change his life for ever.
[+] [-] sciurus|14 years ago|reply
"I had a hard time characterizing this wonderful book. It explains the fundamentals, but it's not an introductory book like Learning Perl. It covers almost every feature of the Perl 5 language, but it's not a reference book like Programming Perl. It explains common idioms, but it's not a guide to Perl 5 fluency like Effective Perl Programming. It contains many practical suggestions, but it's not a book of tips like Perl Hacks.
I can only describe it as a "textbook". If I had to pick a single book to teach Perl 5, this is the one I'd choose. As I read it, I was reminded of the first time I read K&R (C Programming Language) and how much learning was packed into it. (It's the only college programming text I still have). In a slim 250 pages, Modern Perl obsoletes most of my shelf of Perl 5 books. It's not intended for a complete novice to programming (any more than K&R was), but in the hands of a competent programmer or a diligent student it will teach everything that one needs to know to write Perl 5 well."
[0] http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/
[1] http://www.amazon.com/review/R1EAHI4GHDLQ96/ref=cm_cr_dp_per...
[+] [-] chromatic|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukeschlather|14 years ago|reply
Anyway, what I'm getting that is 4 years is a pretty short amount of time now that Larry Wall has made me think about it.
[+] [-] joelbd|14 years ago|reply
The difficulty right now for anyone from a Perl 5 background who would otherwise jump into Perl 6, is that running your Perl 6 program is really, really slow. I don't know if it's the compile step or execution or something else.
[+] [-] sirn|14 years ago|reply
[1]: https://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads
[+] [-] neutronicus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|14 years ago|reply
You might find it interesting to use it.
[+] [-] killa_bee|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomrod|14 years ago|reply
Simply put, a function can map arbitrarily, and a script has the mapping and parameters provided!
At least, that's when you get into the scientific computing paradigm, as I understand it.
[+] [-] netbyte|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masak|14 years ago|reply
Learn Perl 5 if you want to learn how a full-featured, complete, and liberating-to-use programming language works.
Check out Perl 6 if you want to see what some of us are building, and if you value ideas as such, even when they haven't all been put together into a finished, polished product.
[+] [-] joslin01|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged|14 years ago|reply
Is this a reference to consultant_barbie on reddit, or is this meme more widespread?
[+] [-] bgilroy26|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itsameta4|14 years ago|reply
I'm sure consultant_barbie is referencing the same.
[+] [-] hashfold|14 years ago|reply
In my opinion, none of the language will solve the problems with programming or bad programs. The only thing which could help programmers is the way they think of the solution and how they approach to it. Thinking about long term solution for a given problem may help.
[+] [-] losethos|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zoowar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aoprisan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perlgeek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agentgt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|14 years ago|reply