On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 11:04:08AM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> >Worry not.  Perl 6 development has long since crossed the point of no
> >return.  Too much work has already been done, with multiple, fairly
> >complete testing implementations available and polished enough so that
> >you could be fooled into thinking you have a release version of a new
> >language in your hands.
> >  
> So are you saying that one, should one be interested, could become a 
> Perl 6 user and try to write "killer apps" in Perl 6? How easy would 
> that be for someone who's a Perl 4 hacker that can copy working Perl 5 
> examples out of a book and get them to execute? :)

Perl 6 is actually a pretty significant departure from even Perl 5, let
alone Perl 6.  I can follow the syntax (being a Perl 5 guy), but it's
not exactly the same language.  To get the idea across . . . you can
write simple scripts in Perl 4 and they'll still execute with a Perl 5
interpreter without making any major changes.  The same, it seems, is
not true of Perl 5 and Perl 6.  It has been said many times that Perl 6
is more a new language than a new release version of an old language.

For instance, try this on for size: Perl 6 apparently won't
automatically "flatten" nested lists.  At first glance, that might just
look like a small design decision, but that fundamentally changes quite
a lot about the language.  No longer is dereferencing syntax necessary
for complex data structures, for instance -- you can just pile a list
inside a list.

It looks like Perl 5 and Perl 6 will be forks of Perl, with Perl 5
development continuing into the future.

Yes, you could probably write a production application in Perl 6 right
now, but Perl 6 is a moving target right now.  If you're planning to put
Perl 6 code in production now, you'd better bundle it with an
interpreter and be ready to support the interpreter yourself.  You'd be
better off, if you want to play with Perl 6 at this point, to do just
that for now -- play with it.  Learn it to the best of your ability,
write toy scripts and even automate non-critical tasks, and submit bug
reports when things don't work as expected.  Right now, using Perl 6 is
more a hobby and a way to help the further development of Perl 6 than a
means of getting Real Work done.  At least, that's my understanding.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"The ability to quote is a serviceable
substitute for wit." - W. Somerset Maugham