The understanding of what is going on has certainly become an order or magnitude harder.
I personally feel that the way the naming has been done has failed on the "keep easy things easy" part. The C vs GCC example by someone was a good one... C being a specification, and GCC being the compiler with version numbers. However, having a number in the name part of a specification - especially when there was a perl4, perl5 is very very confusing. There is neither consistency with how the "rest of the world" seems to name stuff or continuity with how perl compliers / executables were themselves named. Why not just called Perl 6 something like "AbraCobraDabra" (aka, a completely new thing) - i suspect it's been called Perl 6 because: * The powers that be wanted a "feeling of continuity / relatibility" (as Perl 5 is ubiquitous) and something seen as a "brand new language" would have a higher dropoff in takeup For someone who is new to Perl 6 (but i was a "Perl Programmer" for a long time), i have been thoroughly confused by all the naming - i appreciate that there is much more abstraction of layers now, which is great, but the naming has creating a much higher learning curve to understand what is actually going on... i'm probably still thoroughly wrong on stuff but here is my understanding now (and i admit, i'm far from the sharpest tool in the shed): * Perl 6 is akin to "C" (a specification) (i wish they had called it something completely different though as to be frank, Perl5 to Perl6 looks like a transition between different languages - eg. between Python and Go; there are fundamental differences in notation and the way things are done - i claim no-one looking at some code in perl5 vs perl6 (not knowing either language) would say they were completely different languages) * Perl 6.c is similar to "ANSI C" (an new / upgraded specification) * Rakudo is akin to "GCC" (an implementation of the specification with it's own extensions) * MoarVM / JVM are the VM's that Rakudo can run on (this is an abstraction layer so that we can in the future have different languages talk to each other nicely) * ParrotVM seems to be pretty much dead? (this is not a trolling question, it appears from certain emails on this list in the past few days that this seems to be an opinion, i'm just taking it at face value...) * Panda is akin to CPAN??? * I'm assuming people will develop more VM's - which will lead to: * Better portability between some languages * But also lead to things being implemented differently with nuances that cause massive headaches - ie. Already probably when you move from Rakudo MoarVM to Rakuto JVM, things probably break. I'm assuming JVM stands for Java Virtual Machine - and Rakudo on JVM lets you write Perl 6 code (or should i say "Perl 6.c" or "Rakudo Code"???) that can talk to some of your Java Code easily (including exchanging data objects, etc? - i'd love if someone can indicating if i'm sort of correct with my assumption or totally off the mark... In short, i think i like pretty much everything about Perl 6, except that it's got a number and the words "Perl" in it's name :) simran :) On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:16 PM, Alex Becker <asb.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > As this is a frequent answer I encounter when having a look at Perl 6, > maybe it's worth having a look at it's message: > > There will be no Perl 6. > There will be no Perl 6 by definition, because Perl 6 is only a > specification. You cannot program a specification. > > Let's call this statement "specimplexpl". > > A pessimist, or simply some random guy looking for a nice, modern > programming language will read the following: > Stop waiting for it. Or asking for it, as you will only get specimplexpl + > (hopefully) the RSS feed with the latest Rakudo* releases. > Learn something useful you could actually use to make a living nowadays, > e.g. C# .NET or Java (the latter if you are in science / public sector). > > > Why, why do we have to fail this way in terms of marketing? > Why do we pray the specimplexpl on the Rakudo* download page at the > begining? Why do we pray the specimplexpl when someone asks for a Perl 6 > implementation (we did get his intention, as it can be seen with the other > answers). > Perl 6 is so cool. You put so much effort into Perl 6. It's like an > offense to all this hard work when telling someone that "there isn't a Perl > 6.x as such". > > > Would it have harmed the holy spec if more people posted a blog post > titled "Perl 6 is out" or "Perl 6 X-Mas release" (like this one: > http://blogs.perl.org/users/damian_conway/2015/12/perl-6-lives.html)? > The specimplexpl can still be done in the body part. Or as a foot note, if > someone will actually mention that the download link will yield a > rakduso.msi file and nor a Perl-6.msi file. > The Perl6 home page is a nicder example of how it can be done the right > way - it has a "Download Rakudo Perl 6" button. But there however, we fail > on the final meters. > The latest download is Rakudo Star 2015.09 > <http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/rakudo-star-2015.09-x86_64%20%28JIT%29.msi>, > I didn't find 2015.12 here: http://rakudo.org/downloads/star/ (or a file > named Perl-6-xmas-release.msi, as some kind of fun or an xmas present). > > > There was so much magic about this' years Christmas, as Perl 6 has come > out - somehow. > And we don't use it. > Instead, we still pray: specimplexpl. Everywhere. > > > What do we expect that new interested people are looking for when > searching for Perl 6? > What do they search for, when they ask about a Perl 6 release? What do > they want to download? > > A spec? > A specimplexpl? > Or, maybe the successor of Perl 5? In the same relation as Python 2 and > Python 3? PHP 4 and PHP 5? SBCL 1.2.7 and SBCL 1.2.14? COBOL-68 and > COBOL-2002? > > TLDR; > We fail at Perl 6 marketing. > If you are looking for the Perl 6 Christmas release then visit > http://perl6.org/downloads/ and try you luck. > > 2015-12-28 19:41 GMT+01:00 Will Coleda <w...@coleda.com>: > >> There isn't a 6.0.0 as such. >> >> Perl 6's language specification, versioned 6.c (aka Christmas) was >> released; at the same time, the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler, version >> 2015.12 was released, which is the most up to date implementation of >> this specification. >> >> The specification is intended to have only minor changes in 6.c going >> forward; the next version (6.d, no specific release date planned) will >> likely have more involved changes. In the meantime, an implementation >> that supports 6.c is free to change internals or parts of the language >> that were not explicitly part of the 6.c specification. >> >> Future versions of the compiler may have support for multiple versions >> of the specification that can be handled with a lexical "use v6.c" to >> get old behavior once the spec changes. >> >> Finally, Rakudo * is a distribution that includes the compiler and >> multiple modules; Look for this bundled release of the 2015.12 Rakudo >> in the next few days. >> >> On Sun, Dec 27, 2015 at 2:33 PM, webmind <webm...@puscii.nl> wrote: >> > Hiya, >> > >> > I'm a bit confused, there is a major release for Perl 6, but I know >> > wonder if this is the 6.0.0 release or when this will be? >> > >> > Thanks >> > >> > web >> > >> > -- >> > GPG Key: https://u2m.nl/data/webmind.asc >> > GPG Fingerprint: 0506976E 234653B4 A628EC33 E23D16EE FCF154AE >> > XMPP webm...@puscii.nl: D79970A8 7EC43E29 186D86BA 590F20F6 4C7930B8 >> > XMPP webm...@laglab.org: 11E91112 091881F7 53EF6108 63C48543 C74D035C >> > u2m.nl (exp: 08/04/2016) SHA256: >> > >> C2:40:67:22:25:52:29:AF:DF:50:4E:2A:6B:32:6D:BC:5B:1E:CA:7D:52:3B:4C:4A:21:5D:C8:E5:AE:7D:1A:09 >> > Puscii (exp: 04/03/2016) SHA256: >> > >> F9:C7:B1:B7:90:6B:17:BF:84:93:93:7C:0F:B4:FD:BE:E3:C0:71:9D:83:01:ED:3A:96:FE:FC:82:9D:30:51:C9 >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Will "Coke" Coleda >> > >
