| Old debate, it's a core philosophy or the language. It's a bit like complaining that there are a 100 ways to cook chicken. Personally, I like the freedom that Perl offers. Perl 5.x is still widely used in some industries, finance and banking for instance, and it's still the glue that holds 'nix systems together (have a look at the scripts in the bin folders of any distro). Following Modern Perl[1] best practices, you can write powerful, meaningful and expressive Perl 5 without shooting yourself in the foot. Perl 6 is another beast, it removes many of the ambiguities present in Perl 5 and introduces more functional paradigms. At its core, Perl remains a multipurpose tool. The fact that there are multiple ways to do a thing is not bad, whether it suits you or not is a matter of personal preference really. So, if someone is curious about Perl, they should be encouraged to try it and find out for themselves if they like it or not. [1] http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl/ |