Re: What's wrong with Perl 6?

[Anonymous Monk]

I watched Audrey's presentation (the one in Japan, I think). The recent one.

Perl 6 is scary. It's got Perl 5's more-than-one-way-to-do-it, but squared. I was taking notes, but at one point just gave up. Aside from the new (seemingly hairier) syntax, there's all sorts of new ways to not only change the language, but change how the compiler/interpreter works. It's just got multi-dimensional axes of TMTOWTDI all at right angles to each other.

Back to Audrey, what I immediately noticed was how smart she is. I mean, she's wicked smart. Then I realized, most of the Perl higher-ups (Larry, Damian, Allison, etc.) are also big brains like that.

And then it hit me: Perl 6 is mental masturbation. The Damians and Audrey's of the world will revel in the freedom, the power, and the flexibility. The rest of us will be scratching our heads looking for something easier to wrap our brains around.

[duff]

The Damians and Audrey's of the world will revel in the freedom, the power, and the flexibility. The rest of us will be scratching our heads looking for something easier to wrap our brains around.

I hope not! Part of the reason why I wrote Everyday Perl 6 was that I wanted more introductory material on Perl 6 for "the rest of us". Stuff that "ordinary" people would use. Since I didn't find too much, I thought I'd just start writing it.

Damian and Audrey and others are doing their part to inspire the masses; to bring us dreams made real. Once Perl 6 hits the streets, I'm sure there will be articles and books and tutorials and such that will bring "the rest of us" closer to being a Damian or an Audrey (even if I have to write some of them :-)

[laughingboy]

Sing it brother! Quibbles over syntax miss the point IMHO. Perl 6's downfall will be its mind-boggling semantics.

I'll always have a soft spot for Perl 5 -- I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread for quite a while. Then I realized that TIMTOWTDI had a dark side. It didn't matter that I wanted to speak Perl "baby talk". Everyone else's source was speaking a different dialect.

In trying to be all things to all people, Perl 6 is TIMTOWTDI gone wild. I like to think of it as the quantum mechanics of programmming languages.

[PipTigger]

I don't mean to be overly rude but it seems it did matter that you wanted to speak Perl "baby talk" because you also wanted to readily understand everyone else's source (i.e., dialect). Your mentality perturbs me.

Perl 5 enabled you to baby talk blissfully. Perl 6 seems thoroughly poised to enable the same. How is that simple elegance diminished by the availability of optional advanced capabilities? I mean, were you lulled into some misguided silver-bullet idea because Perl has been so successful at making easy things easy that you presumed "baby talk" would also be sufficient to make hard things not only possible but easy too?!

If linguistic expressiveness && many solutions were the dark side of Perl that you were dismayed to discover, can the same be said about other programming or verbal languages you have endeavored to learn at least the rudiments of? I understand that time && effort to learn non-native languages are limited but does this justify taking a diminished outlook on a foreign language because you discover mind-boggling semantics in the poetry of the native speakers?

I don't think Perl 6 is trying to be all things to all people. Neither does it seem to be TIMTOWTDI gone wild (in any devastating, irrational, insurmountable, etc. way). Maybe you're just a joker && I should just laugh along instead of being potentially ridiculous by taking a serious posture against you but everything I've yet learned of both Perl 5 && 6 suggests that they'll both be awesome languages for quickly writing useful software (even if you only scratch the surface). It seems unjustifiable && unproductive to expect to readily comprehend average or expert composition without a commensurate expectation to proportionately expand your own relevantly featureless vocabulary && inadequate understanding of diction (&& then it's disingenuous to describe the distinction between baby && mind-boggling as merely dialectic).

Perl 6 may have a much higher complexity ceiling than any programming language that has come before but it's also progressing powerfully towards making easy things even easier && hard things easy now too! If you don't need to know more than one way to do something, you should be just as able to ignore the subtleties && the new semantics you are daunted by. If you ever find the time && inclination to learn more, hopefully it can be seen as benefit rather than burden to you... and hopefully you can also learn to harbor less resentment towards the fluency of adolescents, adults, && elders just as they concertedly foster your self-directed socialization process to be viably terminated during infancy. I don't know. I love Perl but I still know how very much I have yet to learn about 5. I'm just thinking it would be more helpful for everyone if you could think about your attitude a bit more carefully && maybe demonstrate more gratitude for ambitious progress rather than indignance, disappointment, && an immature sense of entitlement towards universal simplicity. Lowest-common-denominators don't lend well to improvement.

I'm convinced that Perl is greater than sliced bread... && sushi! ;)

Again, sorry if I'm being too harsh or flaming counter-productively or without warrant here. I just wanted to contest your quibbles with mine intelligently. I've still got lots to learn about being intelligent too! ;)

[db4n]

OMFG, what a raging fanboi.

laughingboy wrote:

I realized that TIMTOWTDI had a dark side. It didn't matter that I wanted to speak Perl "baby talk". Everyone else's source was speaking a different dialect.

PipTigger wrote:

I don't mean to be overly rude but it seems it did matter that you wanted to speak Perl "baby talk" because you also wanted to readily understand everyone else's source (i.e., dialect).

I don't mean to be overly rude but it seems you don't read very well. Judging by the context of laughingboy's "didn't matter" comment, I would guess that what he meant was that being allowed to speak baby Perl didn't matter, i.e. the dark side mentioned in his previous sentence was still a problem. This would be because of everyone else's more advanced code that he mentioned in the following sentence.

[BrowserUk]

Do you, or anyone, know if the video of Audrey's presentation is available for direct download anywhere? Preferably somewhere that supports resumable file transfers.

I found it on google video, but trying to watch streaming video via dialup is pointless and trying to reliably unpick the google video urls to get the file with wget seems to be pretty much impossible.

[Anonymous Monk]

Do you, or anyone, know if the video of Audrey's presentation is available for direct download anywhere? ... I found it on google video,

The Google video page has a button on the right hand side of the window to download the video.

She's not only smart, but funny too. Even with the tough crowd. :)

[BrowserUk]

Can you, or anyone, confirm that the "video ipod/Sony PSP" format (184MB) version of the video from google can be played with Quicktime 7 or WMP or DivX player?

I downloaded 1% which is usually enough to verify that something I have will play the file, but nothing I have will touch it. QT says it has an invalid header and the DivX player refuses to try, because it knows I haven't got he whole file. It's strange, because I've got numerous "ipod format" and mp4 format podcasts and the same trick of downloading a small percentage and verifying they play, worked with all of them.

I've verified I could play the other option, Windows/Mac format version, but it is considerably larger, 250MB. And worst of all, the server refuses to allow resume for that format. There's no way I'd be able to get it all in one go.

Damn! I wish I could get broadband here :(