> >> And no, saying "perl5 will still be around" isn't doing us much good. > >> There won't be new development of perl5, or bug fixes. > >> > >> Other languages will remain being developed and bugfixed. If perl6 is > >> going to happen (I hope it won't), I'll be shopping for a new language. > >> perl6 will just be one of the candidates. > > > > When the developmet/bug fixing of perl5 discontinues, what will happen if > > someone insists to continue the path. Perhaps with forking? > > Then the development/bug fixing of perl5 will not have > discontinued. Perl5 development will only stop if people stop > developing (tautology alert). Unless I'm greatly mistaken, Larry's not > going to stop people who want to do that.
As I understand (as opposed to know first hand) these things: Perl 5 will probably have a co-existant lifespan with Perl 6 for about 2-3 years. It takes time for businesses to adopt new languages/versions for their mission critical stuff. One guy on [EMAIL PROTECTED] was running a 5.004 system, which he couldn't upgrade without (multiple) committee approval. He wanted to backinstall OO based modules, which was a bit of a problem. Also, a company I worked for last summer still used Perl 4 - as it was packaged with a commerical program they used (ClearCase, Rational's SCM tool). In my experience with Perl, I'd say it is a stable language despite it's complexity... and most bugs can be worked around. Fretting over syntax changes is hardly worth it, provided it isn't a significant departure from what we know and love. Perl 5 threading and scalability are significant issues. If you use 20 modules in your application, you have to wait for 20 modules to be parsed, compiled, optimised and then run. One of my hopes for Perl 6 is that Larry will squeeze PHP's marketshare. Why? Most ISPs run Perl code under CGI, hence you are forced to use PHP which is built-in to apache on most ISP systems. If Perl 6 allows compilation to bytecode with optimisations, then you might find mod_parrot installed on many more ISP systems. Why mention this? Well, the only way to add dynamic content to a website would be for me to learn another, less flexible language - I'd rather stick to something m/^Perl(?:5|6)$/, even if I have to make a few changes to how I'd use it. Perl 6 will happen, Larry's job at O'Rielly depends on him writing and selling books :) Changing the rules makes it easier to sell more. Most of Perl's syntax is the product of Larry's imagination, either we like it or lump it. I like Perl 5 thus far, and don't think Larry is about change Perl 6 into COBOL/ADA/Befunge/Pascal or whatever. I think this thread should be moved to [EMAIL PROTECTED], since it's kinda not fun. Jonathan Paton __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com
