> What I don't want to start (and I may have done so anyway) is a simple > name war. If you feel emotionally attached to "Perl", then fine, so am > I. But if you feel that there is some compelling logic here that will > affect the community, I would be very interested.
The reason why it's still Perl is that it is a relatively small learning effort to write Perl 6 code using Perl 5 idioms. Eg $foo{bar} becomes %foo{bar}, '.' becomes '_' etc, but the end code is still largely recognisably Perl. Contrast this to an experienced Perl 5 coder trying to pick up Python or Ruby from scratch. A different order of magnitude altogether. Clearly there's all the optional new stuff in Perl 6 which is strange and needs learning, but that's no different from Perl 4 coders having to get up to speed on refs, OO, and all the other 'strange' stuff that Perl 5 introduced. (eg think how strange $self->SUPER::bar([qw(a b)]) was to Perl 4 coders.) So in purely technical terms, I think Perl 6 is close enough to Perl 5 to keep the name. In marketing terms, we absolutely must keep the name. If you're a fan of Coke, are you more likely to switch to "Cherry Coke (tm)(c)(r)(etc)", or "new cherry fizzo drink, bottled in the same factory that makes Coke(tm)(c)(r)(etc)" ;-) Just MHO.