>>>> We hear the same argument in reverse that people should work on Perl 5 >>>> instead of Perl 6, as if the people who are working on Perl 6 would _of >>>> course_ be working on Perl 5 if 6 didn't exist. There's no reason to >>>> think this is true, and many reasons to think it's not. Many Perl 6 people >>>> never contributed to Perl 5 the way they do with 6. >>> >>> Maybe there are others that said that, but I have said something related >>> and I want to be more clear. >> >> I wasn't attributing this idea to you. The idea that Perl 6 has drained >> development resources from Perl 5 has come up many times over the years. > > For some reason this reminds me of the idea that's come up several times, > that learning DBIC is quicker and easier than learning SQL if you don't know > SQL already. Another idea I don't agree with, although I concede the idea > that people would be working on Perl 6 if it weren't for Perl 5 focus is > pure assumption based on no real evidence; much like the idea above.
As I recall, there was something of a glut of volunteers in 2000 gumming up the perl 5 maintenance works: one thing the perl 6 project immediately succeeded at was, reduce the noise in p5p. Also: ECMAscript is a standard, and is perfectly fine for what it is, migrating systems other than client-side web page automations to it continues to be wise. Also: "going the way of FORTRAN or COBOL" looks, based on statistical facts, to be a good thing -- an immense installed base of mission-critical systems -- opposed to, say, going the way of Simula or ALGOL, and being a fascinating historical footnote. COBOL is the rivets in Big Iron. -- "It is merely a matter of persistence." -- Albert Camus
