From: Steffen Schwigon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Thomas Wittek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Maybe we should steal the ruby "principle of least surprise" here,
> > which I find a very good principle.
>
> I'm quite confident that Larry already stole all good principles he
> could find.
Me too. However many ongoing discussions on #perl6 and in
perl.perl6.language involve how to better reconcile such principles.
(Thanks especially to Pubs, which has stimulated a great many
refinements and improvements in the Perl 6 language, and continues to
do so.) So I think the previously expressed sorts of general concerns
are valid, even if there turns out to be {other overriding technical
issues, or some sort of misunderstanding} in this particular case.
> If there would be a "Full Metal Perl" movie, the imdb
> quote collection would contain:
>
> "These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green
> giants,
> walking the Earth with Perl6.
Good start ....
> These principles we stole here today
> are the finest principles we will ever know. After we rotate back
However .... "Finest principles known now" is extremely likely a
subset of "finest principles we will ever know" (especially
considering how relatively recently most were discovered, and
especially if you live at least another 10+ years). One *huge*
advantage of Perl 6 is to make it *much* easier to copy *new* great
ideas as they come along. I think that one of Perl 6's greatest design
principles is to anticipate discovering new great design principles.
> to
> the world, we're gonna miss not having any principle around that's
> worth stealing."
Oh yea? What about Perl 7!? :-)
I expect that Perl 7 will have at least 1 or 2 new "finest principles"
that will be back-ported to Perl 6. My wild guess is that an early
perl7 production prototype will be available around 2020.
But I think it's a big mistake to get too stuck on specific Perl
version numbers, versus featuring the evolutionary role and trajectory
of Perl: "Perl++, the most natural language of software progress;
featuring CPAN++, the executable Wikipedia of software expertise."
(This generic designation also has the virtue of reminding people that
the other branch of Perl is also evolving, with Perl 5.10 well along
in the works, and Perl 5.12 seems a very likely follow-on prospect.)
Best regards,
Conrad Schneiker
http://perl.net.au/wiki/Perl_6_Users_FAQ (Moved from AthenaLab to Perl
6 Wiki.)
www.AthenaLab.com (Nano-electron-beam and micro-neutron-beam
technology.)
