Re^2: What is the scope of Perl Monks?

[Herkum]

The thing for me is that Perl 5 has been this sites primary focus for 10 years. 10 years is a lot of questions. After a certain point there has to be a tail-off of new and interesting questions.

Allowing Perl 6 questions to be added I believe the community can continue to be interested in contributing. If it is limited to Perl 5 only I would think the site would eventually wither and die.

[talexb]

Somehow this brings to mind the following quote ..

Everything that can be invented has been invented. -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Patent Office, 1899

.. Commissioner Duell urging the closure of the Patent Office. So, your comment

After a certain point there has to be a tail-off of new and interesting questions.

has the same ring to it. I think there are still new and interesting questions being asked. After all, Perl 5.12 has just been released with a boatload of changes, and there are CPAN updates arriving every day.

In my opinion, there's still plenty to talk about, and the imminent arrival of Perl 6 (I've been hearing a Christmas delivery date .. for a couple of years) will just add a new topic of discussion.

I agree that when Perl 6 arrives, there are going to be plenty of people dealing with legacy (heh) Perl 5 while some folks will be able to zoom right into Perl 6. And we're all one big community -- why separate Perl 5 from Perl 6?

I'm reminded of a Star Trek episode with guest star Frank Gorshin, the one where he's black and white, chasing after a guy who's white and black. But I digress.

Traffic's only going to increase with the release of Perl 6. And that's going to be a good thing. :)

[Herkum]

While your quote from Duell has insight you have are ignoring two things.

1. The subject matter we are talking about is Perl 5 which limits our scope.
2. Questions that are generally ask and answered are short and focus on fairly basic concepts or approaches. You don't see questions that are more than 1 page in length.

Within these limitations there are really only so many questions that can/will be asked. Questions of greater length or time are more likely to be discussed on a mailing list focusing on the specific details on the subject. In fact we tend to encourage it. So I still stand by my previous point, there are going to be few new and interesting questions.

why separate Perl 5 from Perl 6

The one thing I would point out is that we should categorize these separately. They may have the similar names they are really different languages and should be not be intermingled. It will only create confusion.

[jethro]

Good idea. I vote for "Seekers of Perl6 Wisdom" aka SoP6W as a separate category when rakudo reaches the mythical version 1.0