Luke Palmer wrote:
Okay, I may still be missing your point, so let me try to summarize
just to be sure we're on the same page: You say that the thing that
is going to hinder migration to Perl 6 is the fact that it's different
from Perl 5.
Intentionally trite oversimplification. My problem is that it's
different in some ways which are not truly useful, and that cause
unnecessary relearning/rewriting/incompatibilities.
Our target audience is only somewhat from a Perl 5 background. People
from Java, from Python, from C, and even just starting to program will
be learning Perl 6, and they would rather have all the language be
zero-based, rather than most of it being zero-based except for $1, $2,
etc. (you were complaining about special exceptions if I recall).
Every regex engine in every language uses $1 or \1. This includes Java,
JavaScript, C, PHP, Python, awk, sed, the GNU regex libs, etc. Somehow
other languages seem ok with this, because it's a widely-used convention.
And you don't have to answer, but have you actually programmed in Java
or Python? You seem to be speaking for alot of programmers.
The reason I'm dismissing you as a "complainer" is because of your
broad field of attack. You say that "the method syntax is starting to
make [your] head spin". Well, what about it is making your head spin?
The method: infix:<+> stuff makes no sense to me, but I don't want to
dwell on it.
The fact that we use . instead of -> (like every other language on
the planet)?
You're using my argument for me - thanks. See above.
If you want something to change, you should suggest a change. If you
think that Perl 6 is changing too much in general, and that we should
go back and make it more like Perl 5, you probably won't get your
wish.
That's not my wish; just that it's time to take "another look" at the
list of changes to see where the real-world benefit is.
[1] Which will be, what, eight hours for a Perl 5 programmer? Have
you ever spent a month trying to learn, oh, say, Haskell? Because
people do that, too.
There are more components to this that just the learning time for one
person. There are project teams, sustaining engineering for existing
projects, etc. And that's not even counting management tape. Real-world,
profitable computing is a big, ugly, nasty beast.
If Perl 6 is going to be successful, this means it must change the
fewest key things with the most benefits. This may mean some things that
"aren't quite perfect" still don't get changed. (It also means lots of
new stuff can still be added - I'm just talking change.)
For example, NIS+ was released as a follow-up to NIS. It was supposed to
solve all the issues (mostly security) from NIS. But it was made too
complicated, and incompatible with NIS. People were supposed to re-learn
NIS and convert all their maps to NIS+. They didn't.
Just food for thought... maybe I'm wrong...
-Nate
