Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
Given that Perl 5 internals post 5.004 caused the need for a rewrite anyway, I'd imagine that this would be a particularly horrid idea. The Perl 5 path is almost dead: adventurers and Win32 users are the vast majority using it at all. Add Solaris 8 1/01 to the list of OS's that have completely rejected 5.6, as I discovered last night, and I'd imagine that there are more. Let Perl 5 die with the corporate interests. The rest of the world, however, needs a migration path of some type, if indeed "perl for the people by the people" is actually ever going to be a reality rather than a marketing scheme. Perl 6 represents more than technological playtime for language designers, guys and gals. It also represents a long-needed social and political reform, should any of that be accepted by Larry and left in peace by the corporate interests now in firm control of Perl 5. John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dan Sugalski wrote: I personally would rather that perl 6 handle perl 6 code only, and leave the compilation and interpretation of perl 5 code to perl 5. FWIW, I agree 100% with Dan. -- John Porter
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, David Grove wrote: The Perl 5 path is almost dead: adventurers and Win32 users are the vast majority using it at all. Since when? Add Solaris 8 1/01 to the list of OS's that have completely rejected 5.6, as I discovered last night, and I'd imagine that there are more. Not true; Sun is just being their paranoid selves and put on 5.005 instead. I'm sure they will go to 5.6 when 5.8 is out; that's their style. From 'www.perl.com': "For the faint of heart, the previous version of Perl is the 5.005_03 release. Timid souls who are afraid to upgrade to the current release might want this." Sun probably decided that they are faint of heart. Let Perl 5 die with the corporate interests. Corporate interests? That's news to me. I always thought that the people who worked on Perl 5 were the hard-working folks on p5p. - D [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
Dan Sugalski [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 08:23 PM 4/13/2001 -0700, jc vazquez wrote: On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Dave Storrs wrote: ... We could then just add a -7 flag. Or, just use: #!/usr/bin/perl6 To solve this versioning issue, is there a way Perl 6 compiler can just figure out what's being fed? I mean, without saying anything using options or pragmas. There must be a way by analyzing the syntax or the context to find out if it's p5 or p6. Let the computer do the work. Why? We don't ask this of any other compiler, so why ask it of perl? (You won't find this in a C, or Fortran, or Ada compiler...) I personally would rather that perl 6 handle perl 6 code only, and leave the compilation and interpretation of perl 5 code to perl 5. If we insist on having perl 6 eat perl 5 code, then people are more than capable of adding a "-M5" switch to their command lines. I think you've missed Larry's point that Perl gets used in some pretty weird places that aren't necessarily known about by the user. Unless you can get at every single one of those and add a '-M5' switch, then they aren't going to work. Which could be very bad indeed. -- Piers
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
Dan Sugalski [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why? We don't ask this of any other compiler, so why ask it of perl? (You won't find this in a C, or Fortran, or Ada compiler...) Yes, but my compiled C binaries in /usr/bin don't break when I upgrade gcc. A binary is largely independent of its compiler once it is compiled and installed, interpreted programs do not have this luxury. Think of it this way... what would happen if Borne Shell suddenly decided it was going to introduce fundemental incompatibilities? (I'm sure they already have...) -- Michael G. Schwern [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/ Perl6 Quality Assurance [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kwalitee Is Job One Teleportation must be invented. If we don't invent teleportation, China will throw nuclear bomb everywhere. Especially now everyone can live forever. --Alex Chiu, Immortality Guy
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
John Porter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Piers Cawley wrote: Unless you can get at every single one of those and add a '-M5' switch, then they aren't going to work. Which could be very bad indeed. The analogous situation with p4-p5 wasn't so bad. People just kept their p4 binaries around for running those old scripts. No biggie. There's quite a lot more Perl 5 code out there than there was Perl 4 code. And it's rather annoying to still be maintaining a perl4 installation at this point for the stragglers, although I suppose that can't be helped. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: Larry's Apocalypse 1
On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, David Grove wrote: Add Solaris 8 1/01 to the list of OS's that have completely rejected 5.6, as I discovered last night, This is quite unfair. Sun has supported perl nicely and Sun employees have actively contributed to 5.6.0 and beyond. That Solaris 8 included 5.005_03 and not 5.6.0 is due to a range of factors, including the very long lead time for *any* such bundling to be developed and tested. The timescales of corporations like Sun are not the same as those commonly encountered in the open software arena. It is quite possible that 5.6.1 will be included in future versions of Solaris. corporate interests now in firm control of Perl 5. I don't think this is accurate either. I certainly don't see any evidence of Jarkko pressing any particular corporate interest. Nor is this list the appropriate place to make such charges. -- Andy Dougherty [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Physics Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042
