Python 3 is well-defined, with a stable and usable implementation. You can port your code to it today, and even big projects like Django are getting ready to shift over to it.
Perl 6's definition continues to change, with no clear spec, and the leading implementation (Rakudo) doesn't have half of the features built. Even if there were a feature-complete implementation of it I wouldn't dream of starting to port my code over to Perl 6 yet.
Perl 6 is really a different language, and should be named as such. With that out of the way, Perl 5 can then get rid of its "5" and move on to release 16 in a year.
>>Python 3 is well-defined, with a stable and usable implementation.
It is hard to compare.
The main similarity between Perl 6 and Python 3 is probably the age. The main difference is that Perl 6 is really, really ambitious.
How would the Perl community be attempting to "deceive people via a false impression of honesty" by dropping the long-since-atrophied major version number?
What possible point of honesty is served by gluing that 5 to the language in perpetuity, just to continue waiting for Godot to show up?
For the sake of (spiteful) example I submit Perl 4 should be now known as Perl, and Perl 5 should deal with succession syndrome. Oh but Perl 6 is disruptive and confusing because it's so different you might complain, adding that 5 wasn't so different from 4. You wouldn't have dealt with the frustratingly subtle differences between Perl 4 and Perl 5 then. Or reams of Perl 5 documentation written as Perl 4 code with errata.
http://blogs.perl.org/users/alberto_simoes/2011/06/perl-perl...
http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2011/06/perl-perl-5-perl-6...
http://blogs.perl.org/users/mithaldu/2011/06/why-are-people-...
http://jjnapiorkowski.typepad.com/modern-perl/2011/06/perl-5...
Few people outside the perl community see "Perl 5" and "Perl 6". For most people referring to the language they simply call it "Perl."
For marketing to developers specifically, I think the biggest hurdle isn't the name but the stigma attached to the language. Most developers I talk to outside of the perl community still see perl as a "write only language" that consists purely of "line noise." They don't specifically say whether they are talking about Perl 5 or Perl 6. To them there is no distinction.
Nobody want's to invest time into learning something called "Perl 5" when there's something already out there called "Perl 6". Yes, some research into it will reveal that they are now on two separate dev paths, but there is still some mental stigma associated with investing time in learning an "old version" of something. And learning the "newer version" quickly reveals that it is not widely used/supported yet. They are basically two separate languages and should be treated as such.
These days the arena Perl competes in is extremely competitive, and these seemingly small issues will continue to be disastrous for Perl.
Renaming Perl 6 to Rakudo makes about as much sense as renaming C to GCC to MSVC.
Rakudo, while a nice name, is also too easy to mistype - even core committers (me included) have frequently misspelled its name in commit messages etc.
I agree with the principle of this, but you do have to compare this to Pearl.
Did I mention that he also has a family, and a local church in which he is very active?
Update: I forgot, he also helps Tom Christansen to bring out the next edition of "Programming Perl".
Actually the odd numbers could become the Perl5 series and its gradual evolution. And the evens, the experimental Perl6 series of taking computer languages where no man has gone before. But that's just pointless... it would be another 20 christmas before Perl 8 would start to materialize.
Besides, Perl 7 is supposed to be "God's rewrite of Perl". So, here's where God comes in and Perl 7 saves us all.
The numbering system merely hastened the demise by further making sure that any sensible interested committer would first check to see what was going on with the latest branch, discover it was the same godawful non-navigable incompetent mess of splintered crazy version wreckage floating abandoned on a lake of ennui that you can trivially see before you today, and run like fuck in the opposite direction.
The principal problem with perl today is that it still exists, and that last tenuous skeleton crew of 2-3 smart people who still struggle in vain to breathe life into its long dessicated corpse is still capering about claiming that there's still! some! path! to! relevance!, rather than doing the noble thing and finding employ as dishwashers or carpet cleaning fluid salesmen.
