On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 09:43:34AM -0700, Larry Wall wrote:
> Peter Scott writes:
> : So, I wonder aloud, do we want to signify that degree of change with a more
> : dramatic change in the name?
>
> I'm inclined to think that people will be more likely to migrate if
> they subconsciously think we're taking continuity into consideration.
> Which we are, albeit not at a syntactic compatibility level.
>
> Larry
No, I don't think people will upgrade if this is the case. Why should they?
If perl5 works 'good enough', and they have to change all their scripts. As
others have said,why spend the money?
We need to keep syntactic compatibility, which means we need to keep the
ability for perl6 to USE PERL5. Hence, one of the goals should be to have
parrot/durian/pisa/what-have-you create a perl5-compatible parser, and switch
between perl6 and perl5 on the fly.
The perl6 design needs to *contain* perl5's. It has to be able (ultimately) to
create a parser which does what perl5 does, and people need to be able to run
perl5 code without modification. Otherwise, this won't fly. People will not
upgrade, at least not in large numbers.
Ed
