Never heard of Perl?

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs @wpeckham: "Perl 7" simply skipped over "Raku" and continued right where "Perl 5" left off. The reality of Perl is that it did not and never will "dramatically change course." It is doomed to remain backward-compatible with itself ... which, as I've said, PHP repeatedly did not do.

#1 that is clearly untrue, since some valid PERL-5 code is not valid (or behaves VERY differently) under PERL-4. Clearly function and performance were a greater priority for PERL-5 development than backward compatibility. A stated goal of PERL-6 was to EVENTUALLY return to some degree of support for PERL-5 code, but the primary goal was not that. (See previous statements from Larry Wall, discussion and documentation on PERL and RAKU sites.)

#2 Diverting from an interpreted language to a DIFFERENT BUT RELATED COMPILED language would certainly seem to be a "dramatic course change" to me. Diverting from a dedicated, portable system with a unique and dedicated runtime to a language that could target multiple runtime engines seems to me a "dramatic course change" to me. How anyone could consider BOTH at the SAME TIME other than a "dramatic course change" confounds me. How do you arrive at this opinion?

Originally Posted by PartiZan Try TCL and may be you will change your mind.

Tcl is an excellent language for embedded scripting, but it is weird in my opinion. I learned Tcl/Tk around 2000 and I mostly unlearned it by now.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs "Perl 6 / Raku" died quietly. "Perl 7" picked up where "Perl 5" left off.

What's with poorly designed scripting languages and not being able to release version 6?

"Version 6" was not a new version of Perl 5, it was a completely different language at some point. Raku is still developed (independently) for no good reason (YMMV), not unlike a plethora of other languages.

Originally Posted by YesItsMe "Version 6" was not a new version of Perl 5, it was a completely different language at some point. Raku is still developed (independently) for no good reason (YMMV), not unlike a plethora of other languages.

Actually for very good reason, although one you MAY not agree with.
PERL 6 was intended to be a compiled language with PERL syntax elements and power, but massive portability so the resulting programs could run anywhere the most portable software would run. It could be compiled to run on the JRE (either Oracle or GNU), or a couple of others including one written just for it and to be easily ported to new platforms. Or to native code.
PERL 6 was written as a standard and language definition, so if anyone wanted to work from that and create their own independent PERL 6 compiler it would be easily possible.
PERL 6 was created to expand PERL beyond the confines of Larry Wall creativity and into a broader community for widespread support and expanding features as the community and its needs grew. With PERL power it might act as an efficient replacement for JAVA and SMALLTALK for a significant number of projects!
It was NOT written to be done in a day, or year, or even decade. IT was written so it would be able to grow and change to provide for a very long lifespan.
Arguably, it has already met SOME, but clearly not ALL, of those goals.
I find it an exciting concept, and am looking forward to watching it for some time.

Most of the world's Perl software these days is written in Perl-5 and, above all other things, must remain operational. As I said, "you can define a newer and better language if you want to, just don't call it Perl because it isn't."

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Most of the world's Perl software these days is written in Perl-5 and, above all other things, must remain operational. As I said, "you can define a newer and better language if you want to, just don't call it Perl because it isn't."

Dude! If you are the man that CREATED the language you can name it anything you want that is not a trademark or copyright infringement! Sorry, I do not make the rules. Sorry, neither do you.

Perl actually is copyrighted "Larry Wall and others".

Yet, if you create a new language and call it C, it still is not C.

Originally Posted by wpeckham Dude! If you are the man that CREATED the language you can name it anything you want that is not a trademark or copyright infringement! Sorry, I do not make the rules. Sorry, neither do you.

This is really a moot point. PHP®, for example, is wholly owned by the Zend Corporation. However, if they were suddenly motivated to appropriate COBOL and call it "PHP_n+1," I don't think they'd get very far. A language environment, once firmly established by actual world-wide usage, ceases to be flexible or arbitrary.

Originally Posted by PartiZan TCL is very underestimated language. This is question of choice, but TCL is amazing for me with also bunch of libraries. It's very flexible and extendible. If performance is not a bottleneck, TCL can be a good pick. Perl, well, I always forget its syntax.

For me it's always the other way around. I wrote a fair amount of Tk/Tcl/Expect but that was 10-15 years ago and I'd be looking for my O'Rielly book if I had to dive into it again. Perl? Not so much, though I find myself not writing as much in that language any more. Usually "man perlfunc" suffices when I've forgotten something Perl-related resulting in a "Oh yeah... that's right" moment. (Perl's still in heavy -- though declining -- use at work.)

Perlisms I wish more languages had or, at least, made easier:

• use strict; (I just love it when a Python script dies many minutes into execution due to a silly typo.)
• "open( HNDL, 'some-command | ' )"