On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 03:23:04PM -0400, Dan Sugalski wrote:
> At 12:19 PM 4/16/2001 -0700, Peter Scott wrote:
> >Or were you espousing the notion that perl 6 programs should be able to
> >contain sections of perl 5 code? That gives me strange palpitations.
>
> This is what I've been arguing against. Unless I misunderstand (and it
> wouldn't be the first time... :) this is what some folks are arguing for,
> and I very much don't want to go there. Not with perl 6.0.x, at least.
Ok, fair enough - maybe complete compatibility with perl5 in round #1 is
too much to expect.
But would you accept as a goal complete compatibility with perl5 in round #2?
Or round #3?
IMO it isn't important that perl5 compatibility work in the short term or even
in the medium term. But it is important that perl6 is flexible enough so that
it will eventually *do* perl5 without 'too much effort'. And I think it is very
important to have this as a long term goal.
Because it guarantees an upgrade path - people may not use perl6 at the start,
but if it can parse perl5 and run it about as good as the real thing, then
the detractors stuck on perl5 will upgrade. Eventually.
And IMO, here is how to delineate between perl-5 and perl-6:
1) 'package' changed to 'class' - handles all perl5 modules.
2) anything under a 5.6.0 directory == perl5.
2) 'use' changed to 'load' - handles 99% of all perl scripts.
3) everything else is *perl6*
4) alias to 'perl5' for perl for one liners in installation (perhaps
renaming the most current installed perl5.x to perl5 in the first
go-around.)
Ed
(ps -- also IMO, the best way to test the flexibility of the design - in lieu
of totally reimplementing perl5 - would be to do a first cut of perl5 and see
how easy it is to do...
)
