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0 pointslizmat5y ago0 comments

Perl 6 *was* to be the next version of Perl. That was the intent when the whole effort started in 2000. That it didn't turn out that way, has many causes. Enough has been said about that already. But to say that it was a completely separate language from the beginning, is historically incorrect in my opinion.

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wheresmycraisin5y ago· 1 in thread

I disagree. Perl 6 changed fundamental low level syntax and semantics in the language. The 4 -> 5 transition in contrast was mostly syntax compatible, and in fact Perl 4 scripts are our there in the wild running on the Perl 5 interpreter just fine. Yes, it should've been called "Larry's next crazy experiment language" from the start.

The most that was ever promised about the 5->6 transition was that there'd be ways of using 5 modules in 6 (which more or less works for 'pure-perl' 5 modules, within reason).

lizmatOP5y ago

Agree that it did change low level syntax. What was promised initially was that a "use v5" in a lexical scope, would switch to a Perl 5 compatible parser. This project was started, but became pre-empted by the Inline::Perl5 module, which now allows you to use 99.9% of CPAN's Perl 5 modules (even with XS components) seamlessly in Raku. And yes, that is stable enough to be used in production.

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