Do we care about Perl 5, or are all eyes on Rakudo?
I care only for Perl5,
Really? Do you care about Perl 5's given operator or smart matching? Do you think those are "Perl 5 constructs?" Do you really need to care?
most of what I have to say about Perl6, or Rakudo, is not welcomed by the much vocal Perl6 groupies, hence I usually stay quiet when they blog about it. But then again, it feels like I am lightyears away from them anyway, with my requirements for stability and reliability,
Users of Perl 4 (and I was among them) said exactly the same thing about this crazy Perl 5 thing that was going to add an object system and make data structures far too complicated to support in the "real world."
the only thing Perl5 and Perl6 have in common is the prefix of four letters to their name.
Hmmm... no. There are a plethora of features of Perl 5 that remain in exactly the same form in Perl 6. They also share many conceptual similarities ranging from the use of expression context to the use of twiggles to future-proof existing variable names. I think that a lot of people read the specs as they were being written and focused on all of the things that they couldn't imagine doing in Perl 5 instead of the fact that programs will largely look like Perl 5 code. Here's an example:
sub is_prime(Int $n is copy) {
$n = abs($n) if $n < 0;
given $n {
when 0 { return False }
when 1 { return False }
default {
for 2, (3
return True if $n == $f;
return False if $n % $f == 0;
}
return True;
}
}
}
This is Perl 6. The words True and False and the ordering of iterator and list in the for loop are different. There is a type and formal parameters. Other than that, this is bog-standard Perl 5 and perfectly valid Perl 6. If that doesn't bear any resemblance to Perl 5 then what language do you think is bears a resemblance to? It's certainly not more like C, shell, AWK, Python, Lisp, Ruby, Forth, Java, etc.
However, it should be noted that Rakudo really isn't at the point that people should expect to grab it and start hacking on Perl 6 code. It parses a good chunk of the language, but if you're looking to get your feet wet writing P6 you'll probably just end up breaking your keyboard every time it gives you a nonsensical error.
Still, very impressive!
Once I have more hands-on with it, I'll throw some thoughts up on essays.ajs.com
