[chromatic]

Parrot and Perl 6 really suffered until Pugs started producing a standalone test suite. If Perl 6 on Parrot had had that in 2000 or 2001, things might have turned out differently.

I normally agree that throwing away working code and starting anew is the wrong approach, but trying to rewrite the Perl 5 internals to support Perl 6 would have taken at least as long as Parrot and Rakudo have taken; it's really that impenetrable in places.

Your phrase "in danger of becoming useful" is quite perceptive though; I wish I'd thought of it.