Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Perl 6: The Sky Isn't Falling 6 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • "Of course, you'll never actually have to write anything like that yourself, since the Perl 6 distribution will come with a fully generalized source code translator program."

    I wish Damian and others would stop saying that. Perl 6 itself is completely vapourware, so lets not build vapour on top of vapour, please. The Perl 5 translator module is the least appealing job of all the possible perl 6 tasks. So it's likely to get done last, if at all.
    • "Perl 6 itself is completely vapourware, so lets not build vapour on top of vapour, please."

      I have to admit that I get a little frustrated by the hypocrisy in the "perl6 is vaporware" statement. Sure there's no code. We're designing. You remember design. It's what we get flamed for if we don't do. Oh look, now we're getting flamed for doing it.

      We could have leapt right in and started coding. We'd certainly have some parsing code and a language of sorts by now. But would the pieces fit together i

      • I have never once argued for BDUF [c2.com] for the perl 6 process. And I've said before that I think the design by committee approach was a mistake. So I don't really think you can call me a hypocrite for that.

        I am however really mixed up about Perl 6. And for that I appologise to those working hard on it if I hurt their feelings - I should try and remove my passion from discussions of it. I think it has a lot to do with going through the almost exact same process as I went through as part of the Amiga community ab
        • Perl 6 isn't design by committee, and neither is Parrot, so there you can feel comfortable. Or less uncomfortable, at least, and that's something.

          And while it's not wrong to question the wisdom of the choices made by the people in the middle of development, it's something to be careful about if you're not in the middle of that development. Not because criticismis inherently wrong--it's not--but because if you're not at least mildly up to date you'll find yourself worrying about nothing, or inadvertently bu
          • My feeling is that most of the Perl6 documents released to the public (Apocalypses and Exegeses) are written for a very small subset of the people using Perl on a daily basis. How about a status update on Perl6 for those programmers-who-aren't'superstars-and-probably-will-never-be?

            Gnat said in another reply that Perl6 is currently in the design stage and that is why there is not a rudimentary parser and the ilk. I understand the need for time to get the design right but the timetable for the design table seems to be quite open ended. It would be heartening to hear something like "Larry expects to have the first pass of the design done by 200X." I certainly expect and hope that once all the Apocalypses are done that there will be a certain of changing needed to make the design consistent with itself.

            A lot of the initial momentum that was around when Perl6 was announced seems to have disappeared. I think the cause for this is simply human nature: two years ago it was a new shiny, big idea but now it is still a big idea but there isn't a whole lot of new Perl to play with. Sure, there is Parrot but how many Perl programmers are also going to be excited by an assembly-type language, a few but I would guess that most of the people using Perl are doing so to stay away from the assembly level.

            Another status item that does not get addressed is how much more design is needed before it is feasible to start the parser et al. Also, how many more features are needed for Parrot until it is considered ready to support all the features of Perl6?
            • I've been trying to get things out in The Perl Review [theperlreview.com] but that's not enough. Bryan Warnock's doing perl6 list activity summaries when he's got the time, but like all volunteer activities the real world sometimes gets in the way.

              I'll see if I can't get more frequent updates as to what's going on posted to use.perl. Perhaps a regular Q&A session, too.
Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.