There is potentially a place for Raku in education, as a language that can evolve from simple expressions in the REPL to one-liners, basic scripts and through to complete CS courses with the various programming paradigms (procedural, O-O, functional) and into language design with grammars.
The challenge is to develop the progression and its signposts in a way that lures the unwary onto the path, (why do I hear that in Damian Conway's vice?) rather then terrifying them with the whole vast edifice. I'm stii trying to grasp enough of the concepts to decide the logical sequence. The trouble is that those who have a complete understanding of the language have almost certainly forgotten what it was like to be naive and bewildered. On 6/14/20, ToddAndMargo via perl6-users <perl6-us...@perl.org> wrote: > On 2020-06-14 08:04, Radhakrishnan Venkataraman wrote: >> Hi, >> I had been a perl 5.0 user in the past. Ever since perl 6.0 was >> announced, I waited, like many, indefinitely. At last perl 6.0 has just >> started from its starting block and is also in the race. I am happy >> about that. > > Hi Radhakrishnan, > > I am a beginner at Raku and this is from a beginner's > prospective. (But when did that ever stop me?) > > I come from all kinds of computer aided testing programs, > most of which I have forgotten, then Pascal, then > Modula 2. More recently bash, batch and Perl 5. > > I program in what is called "Top Down". > https://www.quora.com/What-is-top-down-programming?share=1 > > Consequently, I use tons and tons of subroutines. Perl 5 > is an "absolute nightmare" for Top Down. Perl 5 passes > variables to subroutines as pointers in an array. (Note > that Pointers in Perl 5 are referred to as "references" > and calling them the generic term "pointer" is picking a > fight with Perl 5 programmers.) There are no pointer > (references) in Raku as they are not necessary AND GOOD > RIDDANCE!! > > When I discovered subroutines in Raku, I though I'd died > and gone to Top Down heaven. > https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Perl_6_Programming/Subroutines > > The insane subroutine parameters in Perl5 make for a lot > of Bottom Up programming. Because of it Perl 5 programs > tend to become "Write Only" programs in a heck of a hurry > and are very hard to maintain. > > The main program I support downloads raw web pages and > digs through them looking for new software revision. > I use regex's "a lot". Just my personal opinion, > but regex's in Raku and a ton easier to use and much > more well thought out than Perl 5. (Perl 5's > regex's remind me of sed's regex's.) > > Also Raku's text manipulation programs are to die for. > You will find yourself using a lot fewer regex's > because of them: "contains", "starts-with", "ends-with" > come to mind. > > Where Perl 5 has it over Perl6 (Raku) is: > > 1) the documents in Perl 5, called Perl Docs, are > wonderfully written and cater to both beginners and > experts. Raku's documents are written as a > refresher for those that already know what they > are doing and not for the beginner. You will tear > your hair out trying use them and maybe say a few > "bad" words. > > 2) Perl 5 compiles in a heck of a hurry. Large > Raku programs take up to ten seconds to compile. > They are working on it. The work around is > the put the main body of your program in a module > and let .precomp (precomile) take care of it. Raku > only re-compiles modules if you have made a change > > 3) Raku can not make system calls to Windows if > it has quotes in it. It is fixed, but waiting to > be rolled out. The work around is to write > to a bat file and then run the bat file. > > 4) Raku programs always do a pop up box in > Windows and can not be run in the background, > as they can in Linux. They are also working on > it. I do not know the progress, but it has > a "very soon" feeling. > > Where neither shine is the lack of GUI component > for laying out GUI windows. Not to fear, Raku > does have a module that interfaces with GTK's > (Gnome Tool Kit's) "Glade" GUI interface designer. > I have not used it yet, but plan on pounding it > in the future. Oh, and GTK and Glade is wonderfully > cross platform. Yippee!! > https://glade.gnome.org/ > https://modules.raku.org/dist/Gnome::Gtk3::Glade:cpan:MARTIMM > > 5) Perl 5 has a much more "mature" module base. > But not to fear on that front either. Raku > is quickly getting there and the rate of > development is dizzying. > > And very important, Raku has an absolutely wonderful > army of mensches both on this list and on the chat > line that bend over backwards to help you. The > developers have some astounding programming chops. > > The Perl 5 newsgroups tend to be "grouchy", although > they are quite helpful. Perl Monks talks over > everyone's heads. And Perl Monks web interface must > have been designed by the devil himself, when he > was not working on batch programming > > To conclude. I absolute LOVE Raku. It is my > favorite language of all time. It is the most > "human readable" I have come across. Compound that > with Top Down, programs become a dream to maintain. > Perl 5 is anything but human readable and I hated > trying to maintain them. > > I have converted all but one Perl 5 program to Raku > (Raku's ftp module does not work) and have started > converting over my longest/worst batch and bash > programs to it. I strongly recommend it. You will > fall in love with it too. > > My 2 cents, > -T > > And now a word from Linus Torvalds: > -- > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > When you say, "I wrote a program that > crashed Windows, "people just stare at > you blankly and say, "Hey, I got those > with the system, for free." > -- Linus Torvalds > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >
