| > Well, duh :) Perl's still more popular than people think. There is no way to define the word "popular" that makes this a true statement with regard to Perl 5 or any future development thereof shooting for backwards compatibility. -- I hate to be the negative nancy in this regard, but I seriously think that this is a cold and hard truth that is causing a lot of suffering because of people who fail to acknowledge it. (Disclosure: I work in a shop that forces me to do Perl, and I hate it with a passion). One definition of "popular" would be: You ask programmers "Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?" [1]. 48.2% will then answer Python compared to 6.75% who will answer Ruby and 2.46% who will answer Perl. Another definition of "popular" would be: Drilling down into those 2.46%, you ask them whether they love doing Perl or dread having to do Perl. 64% will answer they dread it [2]. This definitely agrees with my own experience working in a Perl-shop. Most people say they'd rather be doing something else. The company just feels that it doesn't make economic sense, so we're stuck with it. For the other ones, I seriously suspect a case of Stockholm syndrome or something of the sort. -- Those would be the ones corresponding to the 0.86% (0.0246 x 0.36 = 0.00855) who say they do Perl and they actually like it. The Perl code that's currently out there is literally sitting on top of an ecosystem that is rotting away beneath it [3]. For legacy code, the argument can sometimes be made that the situation is not bad enough yet to warrant moving away from Perl. But starting a new greenfield project in Perl 5 is, in my opinion, nothing short of professional malpractice. So Perl is pretty much relegated to the hobbyist sphere, with Perl 5 maybe being of interest to retrocomputing aficionados. In that sense 80s-BASIC is very much the proper comparison class. Not modern-day Python or Ruby. With Perl 6 / Raku not offering a viable migration path, one has to look at it the same way one would look at any other modern-day programming language upstart, with all the problems that entails (like lack of ecosystem, etc.) Introspecting my own psychological experience now, I would go as far as to say that the open source developer community keeping Perl alive is perhaps the only group of people who truly meet the definition of giving the world something for free out of the goodness of their hearts (even in a way that ends up putting money in my own pockets), but who I actively dislike because of that. I feel like: If only Perl 5 would die a sudden death instead of this slow creeping demise, then, maybe, for me too this torture could finally come to an end. [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-... [2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-... [3] https://perlancar.wordpress.com/2019/08/01/dwindling-cpan-re... |
This allows you to gradually move your code into Raku, replacing Perl 5 modules by Raku ones as needed.
As we're about to reach the 2000 modules in the Raku ecosystem mark, it should be noted that many modules from CPAN are not needed, as they're builtins in the Raku Programming Language. And many CPAN modules have outlived their usefulness in any programming language.