David Grove wrote:
>
> > RFC 0 continues to be bogus, despite its repetition.
> > Perl6 will be Perl, even though it won't be Perl5.
> > It will be a different language, yet it will still be Perl.
>
> Correct. However, the lack of that argument doesn't mean that we should
> arbitrarily slaughter the language.
> . . .
> Perl 5 and Perl 6 will be different because we can't, not
> because we don't wanna. Otherwise, we no longer have perl, but lrep.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that we make changes just
because we can. OBVIOUSLY we would only implement changes
that add something desirable. And the weight of known
desirables is large, or we wouldn't be making perl6.
I'm just really sick of people trying to put down changes
they oppose by claiming that the resulting language wouldn't
be Perl. For example, take a look at RFC 28 (whose title
happens to be "Perl should stay Perl"): nothing but ill-
informed, petulant, absurd whinging about certain classes
of proposed features that the author, in his humble little
opinion, thinks would cause Perl to no longer be Perl.
Stuff generally believed to be useful and desirable, like
improved support for the Functional and OO programming
paradigms.
Change proposals should be raised up and shot down based
on their merits alone, with the goal held clearly in mind,
of making Perl a better language. It is the philosophy
of Perl which must perpetuated; preserving compatibility
where possible is an adjunct benefit.
Of course, we've been around this before; too bad we
have to revisit it from time to time.
--
John Porter
A pessimist says the CPU is 50% utilized.
An optimist says the CPU is 50% unutilized.
A realist says the network is the bottleneck.
