On Sun, 29 Mar 2015 06:36 am, Mario Figueiredo wrote: > On Sat, 28 Mar 2015 21:32:31 +1100, Steven D'Aprano > <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > >>The famous Perl coder Allison Randal writes about why Perl is not dead >>(it's just pining for the fjords *wink* ) and contrasts the Perl 5/6 split >>to Python 2/3: > > A shame Allison doesn't frequent these groups. I would have a few > questions for her. > > Perl 6 is in fact a bit like Python 3. Perl 6 is an attempt to > recreate the language, addressing (by throwing away or heavily > changing) all the things that gave an indication the language would > stiffle and die and bring in new ideas to address the demands of > modern software design and implementation... > > But that's not the thing that confuses me most about Allison's post. > The whole conversation about Rakudo not being Perl was. > > Perl 6 is Perl. It is part of the Perl family.
"Perl family" is not the same as Perl. The Perl documentation is clear that they consider Perl 6 to be not just a mere new version, but a completely different language: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq1.html#What-is-Perl-6%3f My understanding is that Perl 6 is related to Perl 5 in a similar way to (say) Pascal to Algol, Objective-C to C, or Scheme to Lisp. > And Perl 6 has been > developed exclusively as a language specification. Which means it is > not a language implementation. Rakudo is one such implementation, for > the JVM, of the language specification known as Perl 6. Therefore > Rakudo is Perl 6, which means Rakudo is also Perl. > > I mean, we can all agree Jython is Python. Maybe not CPython, but > Python. Maybe not pythonic in all its body, but Python. Rakudo is no > different. The Perl core developers think it is. I have no reason to disagree with them. That's exactly the point that Allison Randal is making: Perl 6 has split with the Perl community, despite Larry Wall's interest in it. That's not the case with Python 3. Although take-up of Python 3 has been slow, it has also been steady, and it is still the same language. > It's a shame(?) it is gaining no traction (and I think > Alisson optimism is either misplaced of whishful thinking). But Rakudo > is a reminder to everyone about the design principles and motivations > behind Perl 6. For good or bad, because no other implementation of > Perl 6 exists yet that can produce working code, which after all this > years can only mean that Perl 6 is in deep trouble. I don't know about that. Is Perl 6 in danger of running out of developers? Could you wipe out the entire Perl 6 development team with one out of control bus? I don't think so. A language like Cobra is, I think, maintained by one person. Frink is even worse: not only is it maintained by a single person, but it isn't even open source, so if he is hit by a bus, Frink dies. (Which is terribly sad, because Frink is amazing.) What is the minimum number of users that a language needs to survive long term? Ten? Ten million? Somewhere in between? If you define "not in the TIOBE top 10" as "in deep trouble", then sure, Perl 6 is in deep trouble. But I think languages can survive for decades or longer in small and not-so-small niches, and continue to be influential long after the language has ceased to be maintained. There are still people using PL/I and APL and Tcl/Tk, even if they aren't being used for new major projects. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
