Re: RFC: (DRAFT Tutorial) A Gentle Introduction to Perl 6

[Anonymous Monk]

“Perl 6 is almost upon us, and it promises to cure many of the shortcomings of Perl 5.”

It’s simply too late to (keep ...) saying things like that.   The biggest mistake that the Perl-6 (sic ...) team did, all those so many years ago now, was to refuse to acknowledge that theirs was, in fact, a project to create an altogether-new programming language.   Had they done that, as Ruby did, they might have been successful, as Ruby was.     Instead of looking at the strengths and weaknesses of “Perl and other languages” at that particular time, and trying to arrive at something really-new that was also really-different and really-better(?) ... as, maybe, Ruby did ... they left us with a fairly-stillborn project that still doesn’t quite seem to know what their language should be, nor even what runtime-engine it should be based upon.

In the end, they most wanted to be able to boldly say ... use v6.0; ... even though their brainchild has no particular claim to any such provenance.

During the same period of time, someone else invented use Moose;, and did so entirely within the auspices of the existing interpreter.   Same thing?   Of course not.   A pragmatic improvement?   Yes.

When I look at these two code-listings side by side, and acknowledging that they are not a particularly good comparison, I simply see no advantages here.   I only see differences in a BNF grammar.   Perl5 is one of a great many programming tools that I use (and encounter) on a very regular basis.   I have yet to see any particular reason to add “this whatever-it-is” to that mix, and I am very frankly tired of hearing about it.

“You couldah been a contendah ...”   Yeah, but the place where the boxing ring used to be is now a drugstore.   Get over it.

[TGI]

Your thesis not new, however it is not entirely without merit. Yes Perl6 is still not at 1.0. Yes, perl 5.10 languished for an extended time, seemingly unmaintained at a critical time in the development of the dynamic web.

Whatever. Those decisions were made and those actions were taken by people doing what they thought was the best thing to do at the time. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe they were right. Maybe somewhere in-between... One thing is certain, stuff happened, it is in the past and won't change.

As to your criticism that Perl6 has no merits or particular strengths beyond Perl5, I can only assume that you have read only this example of Perl6. Had you read any of the excellent, rapidly evolving docs at http://doc.perl6.org, you would realize that Perl6 has some really nice features.

I've been barely dabbling in Perl6 for a few months, and the things that stand out to me are:

• Lazy lists - when combined with nice list comprehension syntax and metaoperators you have immense expressive power.
• Gradual typing - be strongly typed or be dynamic without having to mess about with templates.
• UTF8, I hate it, but Perl6 does it well.
• Concurrency - Perl6 promises, channels and supplies combine with auto-threaded list filters make parallel programming much easier.

On the down side:

1. it really is a new language and a big one
2. Holy crap, there are a billion operators
3. What slurps where and when?
4. occasional bits don't work as documented, or are only documented in a Synopsis.
5. Rakudo codebase is moving really fast. Of course that velocity is a sign that Christmas may actually happen this year.

I suggest you actually give Perl6 a real try.

[Ravenhall]

<Bad imitation of Ballmer> Concurrency, concurrency, concurrency!

Or to say it a different way: Promises, Channels, Supplies.

Seriously though, if the ease of concurrent programming doesn't wet your whistle, I don't know what will.

As Lavar Burton so famously said: "But you don't have to take my word for it":

1. http://www.jnthn.net/papers/2013-yapceu-conc.pdf
2. https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/asynchronous-programming-promises-and-channels/
3. http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2014/08/try-rakudobrew-and-play-with-concurrency.html

[Your Mother]

looking at the strengths and weaknesses of “Perl and other languages”

This was most definitely done. The comment about Moose suggests further ignorance of the Perl6 design process.

Without the cachet of "Perl" attached to the project the chances that it would have got anywhere are slim. So, again we have a revisionist complaining that things weren't done in a way that would have made them impossible to do at all.

Get over it.

There's nothing to get over. Some monks are interested in Perl6. It's no skin off your as^Wnose if they are or they sink time and effort into it.

[Anonymous Monk]

"Without the cachet of "Perl" attached to the project the chances that it would have got anywhere are slim."

As opposed to what we have now, which is...?

Oh right, more promises and a conference talk which was an announcement of an announcement. Great work everyone!