| > If and when a usable p6 is released, who knows what the motto will be then? I guess I don't see why that's an important question when: - there's no horizon on which a complete implementation (or stable target for a spec/test suite, for that matter) is promising to arrive - 5.x has demonstrated it's a living/growing branch with as much a future as any open source project - By comparison, for something like Python, the concrete reality of having a plan for changing horses midstream seems to be more painful than just keeping on with Perl 5 Or are those false assumptions? I don't really expect everyone to keep up with everything about Perl. I'd certainly had no idea 5.10 was even a glimmer in someone's eye for over a year after it had come out because I was busy with front-end work and PHP projects. And I'm responding partly because maybe I've missed something again and this is a learning opportunity. At the same time, when someone speaks up as the GP did and asserts that technical decision makers have done their homework and picked things like Python or Java by comparison to insulate themselves from the spectre of version shifts and associated porting costs, I think they may have earned themselves a challenge. |
That is the problem.
The future of Perl is very, very difficult to predict. 14 years ago, the next major version was announced. It was explained and designed and promoted in public by gathering the community's list of 361 technical flaws.
P6 is now older than Perl was when P6 was announced and no one can tell when or if P6 will replace Perl. That includes developers as well as users and technical decision makers. If you start a new project in Perl today, how long will it be supported? Will you be able to hire or train enough developers? Will you be able to retain them? Will P6 ever replace Perl?
Python has its difficulties with the gradual adoption of Python 3, but at least there's a consistent and coherent story about community expectations. Perl doesn't have that, and that, to me, as a technical decision maker, is a huge risk.