The deep magick in it causing difficulty in adding wishlist stuff, the porters having rather different views on back compat, the dearth of qualified and interested developers. The only one regularly here I’m aware of who is qualified to comment on it for real is dave_the_m.
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The latter two points aren't really issues with the codebase they are more issues with the personnel in the project. The former I know nothing about (I'm just a user) and can only comment in regards to other projects which have stagnated for technical debt until the only remaining option was a considerable overhaul.
If deep magick is holding back development then perhaps a major rewrite for a new major number bump might be the only way to fix that particular issue.
People will always hold different views on back compat and nothing will change that.
Again perhaps a major rewrite for a new major number bump might just be the best hope of attracting more qualified and interested developers?
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I don’t disagree and I’m not qualified to be a core dev so my opinions must be salted. I’m operating on osmotic knowledge. I feel like what you are describing is the backstory of Perl6 and while it has lately turned into something usable it was a “failure” for nearly two decades; I’m of the opinion it actually helped Perl5 considerably and has been a really interesting experiment even when it wasn’t usable. Anyway, I see the no breakage / conservative approach to be exactly what is going on, 5.###. Some breakage, divisive. A version bump to 7, confusing and disrupting; not fixing the Perl6 name issue but compounding it. New blood? …Maybe? Maybe new blood will see the past delays and the remaining divisiveness and say, “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.” Full breakage, invites another total rewrite, Perl6++.
The social and design issues—and therefore the social issues about agreements on design—are extremely difficult. From my chair, all paths other than the one P5 is already on are untenable. There might be someone who sees a way around it but that would require real leadership, not what I’m doing in response to same: armchair quarterbacking.
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