note
tilly
Perl 5 was clearly a rewrite of Perl 4. Sure, a lot of scripts "just worked" with both. But the interpreter was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#Early_Perl_5|almost completely rewritten] and the official [http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/perl/pod/perltrap.html#perl4_to_perl5_traps|list] of known things that could go wrong was rather long.<p>
Perl 6 is more complicated. If there was any hint of compatibility with Perl 5, then I'd call it a rewrite. But they are different languages. And going forward I expect Perl 5 and Rakudo to co-exist indefinitely. (Though eventually I hope that Rakudo reduces confusion by stopping calling itself Perl 6.)
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