FAQ 1.4 What are Perl 4, Perl 5, or Perl 6?
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1.4: What are Perl 4, Perl 5, or Perl 6?
(contributed by brian d foy)
In short, Perl 4 is the past, Perl 5 is the present, and Perl 6 is the
future.
The number after perl (i.e. the 5 after Perl 5) is the major release of
the perl interpreter as well as the version of the language. Each major
version has significant differences that earlier versions cannot
support.
The current major release of Perl is Perl 5, and was released in 1994.
It can run scripts from the previous major release, Perl 4 (March 1991),
but has significant differences. It introduced the concept of
references, complex data structures, and modules. The Perl 5 interpreter
was a complete re-write of the previous perl sources.
Perl 6 is the next major version of Perl, but it's still in development
in both its syntax and design. The work started in 2002 and is still
ongoing. Many of the most interesting features have shown up in the
latest versions of Perl 5, and some Perl 5 modules allow you to use some
Perl 6 syntax in your programs. You can learn more about Perl 6 at
http://dev.perl.org/perl6/ .
See perlhist for a history of Perl revisions.
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fishfry
PerlFAQ Server <br...@stonehenge.com> wrote:
> Perl 6 is the next major version of Perl, but it's still in development
> in both its syntax and design. The work started in 2002 and is still
> ongoing.
And going, and going, and going ...
Perl 6 is the Energizer Bunny of failed software development projects.
Flame away.
Uri Guttman
f> In article <5a76k5-...@blue.stonehenge.com>,
f> PerlFAQ Server <br...@stonehenge.com> wrote:
>> Perl 6 is the next major version of Perl, but it's still in development
>> in both its syntax and design. The work started in 2002 and is still
>> ongoing.
f> And going, and going, and going ...
f> Perl 6 is the Energizer Bunny of failed software development projects.
f> Flame away.
nothing to flame about. you know not from perl6 nor the people and
energy going into it nor the plans. flamebait like this (and anonymous
at that) is meaningless.
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ u...@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.sysarch.com --
----- Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support ------
--------- Free Perl Training --- http://perlhunter.com/college.html ---------
--------- Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix ---- http://bestfriendscocoa.com ---------
fishfry
Uri Guttman <u...@stemsystems.com> wrote:
> >>>>> "f" == fishfry <BLOCKSPA...@your-mailbox.com> writes:
>
> f> In article <5a76k5-...@blue.stonehenge.com>,
> f> PerlFAQ Server <br...@stonehenge.com> wrote:
>
>
> >> Perl 6 is the next major version of Perl, but it's still in development
> >> in both its syntax and design. The work started in 2002 and is still
> >> ongoing.
>
> f> And going, and going, and going ...
>
> f> Perl 6 is the Energizer Bunny of failed software development projects.
>
> f> Flame away.
>
> nothing to flame about. you know not from perl6 nor the people and
> energy going into it nor the plans. flamebait like this (and anonymous
> at that) is meaningless.
>
>
Uri, sadly I do know from Perl 6, the people, the energy, and the plans.
However, things such as people, energy, and plans, are what economists
(and programmers!) call inputs.
Nobody, least of all me, is complaining about the people, energy, and
plans around Perl 6. The problem is the lack of output.
I speak as a frustrated longtime Perl developer who sees the jobs and
the entire industry moving away from Perl not for technical reasons, but
because the people who manage Perl killed the brand.
I don't know whether this discussion is on topic for this newsgroup or
not; but the discussion is certainly not meaningless.
The Perl 6 team is guilty of both second-system syndrome AND Osborning
(announcing a future product that kills off your current product).
The effect on accomplished Perl programmers is very meaningful. I'm
sorry to hear that people find this conversation "meaningless."
It's the Perl community, what's left of it, that's in denial.
My point, which is arguable but certainly not meaningless, is that if
Perl 6 came out tomorrow and worked perfectly and implemented all
possible features, it would still be a failure. It's years late, and the
rest of the world has moved on.
Charlton Wilbur
f> I speak as a frustrated longtime Perl developer who sees the jobs
f> and the entire industry moving away from Perl not for technical
f> reasons, but because the people who manage Perl killed the brand.
This is not what I see at all.
I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
So a company has two or three really good Perl people, who are getting
the job done. Then they expand, and they look for more good Perl
people. And what they find is that the people who know Perl fall into
two broad groups: the relative newbies, who know just enough to be
dangerous, and have lots of bad habits that will need to be broken; and
the experts, who are already gainfully employed and need a *really*
sweet offer to lure them away.
Sooner or later, some upper manager says, "Why are we using Perl when we
can't find qualified Perl programmers? Hell, $university just graduated
2000 computer science majors who all need jobs, maybe we should be
looking at Java instead." And then there's one fewer company using Perl
for new development, and one fewer reason for all those newbie Perl
programmers to develop professional programming skills; and the
experienced Perl experts jump ship for another company.
The managers who make long-term decisions don't know the difference
between Perl 5 and Perl 6, and largely don't care. They know that if
they use Perl, of either flavor, they can't find enough people to get
the work done. This is doing more harm to Perl than anything else.
f> My point, which is arguable but certainly not meaningless, is
f> that if Perl 6 came out tomorrow and worked perfectly and
f> implemented all possible features, it would still be a
f> failure. It's years late, and the rest of the world has moved on.
I don't think "failure" is the right word here. If Perl 6 works
according to design, it will be both beautiful and useful, which is what
it set out to be. It's an open-source project: popularity is not the
primary, or even secondary or tertiary, criterion for success.
And if you want to see how it might get adopted, don't look at the shift
from Perl 4 to Perl 5; look at the shift from Perl or Java to Ruby,
especially of the Ruby on Rails variety.
Finally, if you want to be taken seriously, have the courtesy of signing
your real name. If you don't take your words seriously enough to stand
behind them, why should anyone else?
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwi...@chromatico.net
Sherman Pendley
> I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
move to make any. :-(
sherm--
--
My blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Joost Diepenmaat
>>>>>> "f" == fishfry <BLOCKSPA...@your-mailbox.com> writes:
>
> f> I speak as a frustrated longtime Perl developer who sees the jobs
> f> and the entire industry moving away from Perl not for technical
> f> reasons, but because the people who manage Perl killed the brand.
>
> This is not what I see at all.
>
> I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
Same here. There aren't as many perl jobs as there are java jobs, but
the good programmers are very hard to find. Also, there are so many
java programmers willing to take a job at relatively low rates that a
fairly experienced Perl programmer here can probably get paid more
than an equivalently experienced java programmer.
Exactly what this means in the long run I don't know. But if I had to
guess I wouldn't bet on either Java or Perl as the way to get
well-paying interesting jobs. And if you want to keep working as a
developer, binding yourself to a single language is probably not a
good idea anyway (if only because doing multiple interesting languages
is a good way to get better as a developer).
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/
Charlton Wilbur
JD> Exactly what this means in the long run I don't know. But if I
JD> had to guess I wouldn't bet on either Java or Perl as the way to
JD> get well-paying interesting jobs.
Networking with competent technical people is the way to get interesting
jobs that pay well -- it happens independently of the technology.
Running your own company is the best way to get an interesting job,
although paying well consistently is not guaranteed.
JD> And if you want to keep working as a developer, binding yourself
JD> to a single language is probably not a good idea anyway (if only
JD> because doing multiple interesting languages is a good way to
JD> get better as a developer).
From a professional point of view, though, I think you have to have some
level of specialization. You can't be equally good at everything, and
so you need to choose an area to focus on. In my case, I've focused on
Perl and open source technologies to the almost complete exclusion of
Java, mainly because I found that the slightest hint of Java on my
resume got me attention from a lot of recruiters pushing jobs that I had
no interest in.
Joost Diepenmaat
>>>>>> "JD" == Joost Diepenmaat <jo...@zeekat.nl> writes:
>
> JD> Exactly what this means in the long run I don't know. But if I
> JD> had to guess I wouldn't bet on either Java or Perl as the way to
> JD> get well-paying interesting jobs.
>
> Networking with competent technical people is the way to get interesting
> jobs that pay well -- it happens independently of the technology.
Sure. Though it does help to already have a couple of languages in
your tool box.
> Running your own company is the best way to get an interesting job,
> although paying well consistently is not guaranteed.
I like being a freelance developer; it does pay a bit more than a
"steady" job, and as you say, it's definitely a good way to get
interesting jobs - if only because you can refuse uninteresting /
frustrating jobs and clients.
> JD> And if you want to keep working as a developer, binding yourself
> JD> to a single language is probably not a good idea anyway (if only
> JD> because doing multiple interesting languages is a good way to
> JD> get better as a developer).
>
> From a professional point of view, though, I think you have to have some
> level of specialization. You can't be equally good at everything, and
> so you need to choose an area to focus on. In my case, I've focused on
> Perl and open source technologies to the almost complete exclusion of
> Java, mainly because I found that the slightest hint of Java on my
> resume got me attention from a lot of recruiters pushing jobs that I had
> no interest in.
Hah. Yeah. I made the decision to not take on any more java jobs a few
years ago, partly because of the annoying recruiters and boring
assignment, and partly because I really think Perl is a much better
fit for almost all the jobs I got. But I don't want to be limited to
perl exclusively, so I do some Ruby and PHP stuff, quite a lot of
javascript and I'm messing about with Lisp and reading up on Erlang.
That's not to say I'm completely unspecialized; as you may suspect
from the languages I mentioned, I mainly do web apps based on open
source techniques. But it IME it pays to have some (or more)
experience in the whole chain from webserver to client (not just "my
area of expertise in this big product") and to step completely out of
your specialisation once in a while. I've been working on a linux
"appliance" lately. Quite different from my usual stuff, but it keeps
you fresh.
Uri Guttman
SP> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> writes:
>> I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
>> that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
SP> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
SP> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
SP> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
SP> move to make any. :-(
i hate to reply to the group but i have such information.
Sherman Pendley
>>>>>> "SP" == Sherman Pendley <spam...@dot-app.org> writes:
>
> SP> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> writes:
> >> I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> >> that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
>
> SP> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
> SP> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
> SP> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
> SP> move to make any. :-(
>
> i hate to reply to the group but i have such information.
Sorry, my bad - I should have mentioned, any email at the above domain
will reach me, and my "main" address is sherm <at> dot-app.org. I'd
appreciate any pointers you might have.
fishfry
Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@chromatico.net> wrote:
> >>>>> "f" == fishfry <BLOCKSPA...@your-mailbox.com> writes:
>
> f> I speak as a frustrated longtime Perl developer who sees the jobs
> f> and the entire industry moving away from Perl not for technical
> f> reasons, but because the people who manage Perl killed the brand.
>
> This is not what I see at all.
>
> I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
>
First, thank you and the others who responded thoughtfully. I'm not
trying to stir up shit. I'm attempting to spark a call to action. I'm a
member of the Perl community who is very frustrated about the Perl 6
fiasco (and I do label it as such) and who believes it's time for us to
start speaking honestly about the situation, with the aim of remedying
it.
> So a company has two or three really good Perl people, who are getting
> the job done. Then they expand, and they look for more good Perl
> people. And what they find is that the people who know Perl fall into
> two broad groups: the relative newbies, who know just enough to be
> dangerous, and have lots of bad habits that will need to be broken; and
> the experts, who are already gainfully employed and need a *really*
> sweet offer to lure them away.
>
A far cry from 1999, when Perl built the Web. What happened? Perl 6
happened. First the announcement, which convinced many to stop paying
attention to Perl 5; and then the project itself, which never got done.
One article I read pointed out that if they had just called it Perl++,
none of this would have happened. People would have happily gone on
working in Perl 5; and Perl++ could then take as long as needed to
become as great as I'm sure it will eventually be.
But when you call it Perl 6 in 2002, and it doesn't show up by 2008, you
kill Perl 5. That's what happened. That's Osborning. And that's why
management can't find any skilled Perl developers.
> Sooner or later, some upper manager says, "Why are we using Perl when we
> can't find qualified Perl programmers? Hell, $university just graduated
> 2000 computer science majors who all need jobs, maybe we should be
> looking at Java instead." And then there's one fewer company using Perl
> for new development, and one fewer reason for all those newbie Perl
> programmers to develop professional programming skills; and the
> experienced Perl experts jump ship for another company.
>
> The managers who make long-term decisions don't know the difference
> between Perl 5 and Perl 6, and largely don't care. They know that if
> they use Perl, of either flavor, they can't find enough people to get
> the work done. This is doing more harm to Perl than anything else.
>
> f> My point, which is arguable but certainly not meaningless, is
> f> that if Perl 6 came out tomorrow and worked perfectly and
> f> implemented all possible features, it would still be a
> f> failure. It's years late, and the rest of the world has moved on.
>
> I don't think "failure" is the right word here. If Perl 6 works
> according to design, it will be both beautiful and useful, which is what
> it set out to be. It's an open-source project: popularity is not the
> primary, or even secondary or tertiary, criterion for success.
>
Absolutely agreed. Knowing who's involved, I'm certain that Perl 6 will
be wonderful. I'm not knocking the technical aspects. It's the
marketing. Again, if they called it Perl++ we wouldn't be having this
discussion. But they called it Perl 6 back in 2002. And now, in 2008,
something has to be done before even MORE developers give up on Perl and
there are even FEWER decent jobs for those who are left.
I'm trying to open the discussion. I'd like to decouple Perl 6 from Perl
in people's minds, so that we, the Perl community, can begin to
evangelize Perl 5 on its merits. Perl 5 compares favorably to everything
that's out there. The Perl 6 project has killed Perl 5 on marketing or
mindshare grounds. And something has to be done about that.
> And if you want to see how it might get adopted, don't look at the shift
> from Perl 4 to Perl 5; look at the shift from Perl or Java to Ruby,
> especially of the Ruby on Rails variety.
A number of others pointed out that a good developer should be working
in multiple languages. In fact I do. My concern today is for Perl. If I
go get a Ruby or Python or Java job, that doesn't address the problem
with Perl, or more precisely, with the industry opinion of Perl. Rather
than leave the community, I'm trying to take a stand. I've watched this
Perl 6 thing happen, and it's been ugly. It continues to be ugly. Not
the Perl 6 language. Not the people. The project.
Again, if in 2002 they'd said that Perl 6 is just an open-source hobby
for some smart people, and we should just ignore it and that Perl 5 is
still the main line, then the project would not have killed industry
adoption of Perl 5. That's the point you made above.
But they didn't do that. They said, Perl 6 is what's next. And then they
failed to deliver in a timely manner. We in the Perl community have the
right and the obligation to begin to speak out.
>
> Finally, if you want to be taken seriously, have the courtesy of signing
> your real name. If you don't take your words seriously enough to stand
> behind them, why should anyone else?
Internet anonymity is a choice I made some years ago. I hope my words
speak for themselves.
Charlton Wilbur
f> Internet anonymity is a choice I made some years ago. I hope my
f> words speak for themselves.
I'm afraid, then, that I'm done here. Good luck in your advocacy
efforts.
sherman_...@yahoo.com
> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
> move to make any. :-(
>
> sherm--
sherm wants US to help HIM find a job? ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING???
ASSHOLE, nobody, not even your butt buddy Uri Guttman/Urine Buttman,
would PAY for your obnoxious self to move anywhere at all. I mean,
EVERYONE here hates your fucking guts, and you're one of the biggest
turds EVER on Usenet!!! There is no WAY that anyone who reads this
group would ever consider hiring you for ANYTHING!!! I'd suggest that
you go learn some people skills, but helpful people here have been
telling you that for YEARS, and nothing has changed. So enjoy your
miserable existence in West Virginia, the asshole of America. You
deserve each other!
sherman_...@yahoo.com
> > I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> > that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
>
> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
> move to make any. :-(
>
> sherm--
sherm wants US to help HIM find a job??? You have GOT to be fucking
JOKING!!! Why in the world would anyone HERE want to help YOU???
You're a complete and utter asshole, and most people here hate your
fucking GUTS, you TURD. Enjoy your miserable existence in West
Virginia (America's asshole).
sherman_...@yahoo.com
> > I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> > that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
>
> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
> move to make any. :-(
>
> sherm--
sherm wants US to help HIM find a job??? Are you fscking JOKING???
After all the people that you have psssed off here behaving like a
complete assshole??? Everybody here hates your fscking guts!!!
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sh...@dot-app.org
sherman_...@yahoo.com
> > I've worked for three different companies in the past five or six years
> > that wanted to hire more Perl people but couldn't find any.
>
> Do you know anyone who's willing to pay for relocation to Boston? I'd
> love to get back up to Beantown. I'm stuck in the sticks right now,
> and it's a chicken-n-egg situation. Moving takes money, but I have to
> move to make any. :-(
Get real, you jerk. Nobody here wants to help you, given your years of
obnoxious behavior on this group. Most people here hate your guts!