

Lets just drop the 5 from Perl 5 - kraih
http://blog.kraih.com/lets-just-drop-the-5-from-perl-5

======
sciurus
I almost missed the links in that blog post to the other discussions. They are

[http://blogs.perl.org/users/alberto_simoes/2011/06/perl-
perl...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/alberto_simoes/2011/06/perl-
perl-5-perl-6-and-names.html)

[http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2011/06/perl-
perl-5-perl-6...](http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2011/06/perl-
perl-5-perl-6-and-names.html)

[http://blogs.perl.org/users/mithaldu/2011/06/why-are-
people-...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/mithaldu/2011/06/why-are-people-
asking-for-a-perl-name-change-again.html)

[http://jjnapiorkowski.typepad.com/modern-
perl/2011/06/perl-5...](http://jjnapiorkowski.typepad.com/modern-
perl/2011/06/perl-5-perl-6-perl-x.html)

~~~
agentultra
I think John's post on the modern perl blog is the most rational dissection of
this "problem" that is plaguing the perl community.

Few people outside the perl community see "Perl 5" and "Perl 6". For most
people referring to the language they simply call it "Perl."

For marketing to developers specifically, I think the biggest hurdle isn't the
name but the stigma attached to the language. Most developers I talk to
outside of the perl community still see perl as a "write only language" that
consists purely of "line noise." They don't specifically say whether they are
talking about Perl 5 or Perl 6. To them there is no distinction.

~~~
CurrentB
I agree.

Nobody want's to invest time into learning something called "Perl 5" when
there's something already out there called "Perl 6". Yes, some research into
it will reveal that they are now on two separate dev paths, but there is still
some mental stigma associated with investing time in learning an "old version"
of something. And learning the "newer version" quickly reveals that it is not
widely used/supported yet. They are basically two separate languages and
should be treated as such.

These days the arena Perl competes in is extremely competitive, and these
seemingly small issues will continue to be disastrous for Perl.

~~~
zcid
I can attest to this. This was my first insight into the Perl 5/6 issue. Until
now, I always assumed it was along the lines of Python 2.x and Python 3.

------
rmah
I've been espousing this for years! If java can do it, so can perl. Go go perl
14!

------
ojosilva
And how about Perl 7? Perl 14 would feel like the Java version bump, and
people would say "well Perl 5 just dropped the 5" which means nothing in fact.
Perl 7 could start enforcing all "use feature" and "strict modernity" out-of-
the-box and package things like Moose and sub signatures. And as a side dish,
we could do a cleanup of the interpreter code for p5p mental sanity, in a
"less is more" fashion.

Actually the odd numbers could become the Perl5 series and its gradual
evolution. And the evens, the experimental Perl6 series of taking computer
languages where no man has gone before. But that's just pointless... it would
be another 20 christmas before Perl 8 would start to materialize.

Besides, Perl 7 is supposed to be "God's rewrite of Perl". So, here's where
God comes in and Perl 7 saves us all.

------
tete
I always liked the idea of renaming Perl 6 to Rakudo, being the major/official
implementation. It's also what most other programming languages do. A major,
leading implementation, as well as others following. This would also make it
easier for newcomers.

~~~
perlgeek
Rakudo is by no means more official than any other implementation (for example
currently niecza is quite strong, see <https://github.com/sorear/niecza/> for
the code).

Renaming Perl 6 to Rakudo makes about as much sense as renaming C to GCC to
MSVC.

Rakudo, while a nice name, is also too easy to mistype - even core committers
(me included) have frequently misspelled its name in commit messages etc.

~~~
masterzora
> Rakudo, while a nice name, is also too easy to mistype - even core
> committers (me included) have frequently misspelled its name in commit
> messages etc.

I agree with the principle of this, but you do have to compare this to Pearl.

------
lorax
This seems like a change similar to the perl 5.000000000008 to 5.8 change
(yes, I know it had fewer 0's in it but there were a lot).

------
killerswan
s/Perl 6/Perl Forever/

------
Estragon
What's Larry Wall up to these days, anyway?

~~~
perlgeek
Well, he has a day job, spends significant amounts of his free time on
answering questions on the Perl 6 specification and changing it when
necessary, and attends many perl conferences (YAPC::NA, YAPC::EU, YAPC::Asia,
OSCON) (where Perl 5 and Perl 6 peacefully coexist and share both speakers and
audience, fwiw).

Did I mention that he also has a family, and a local church in which he is
very active?

Update: I forgot, he also helps Tom Christansen to bring out the next edition
of "Programming Perl".

------
steipete
Why? Isn't Perl6 the "new hot" thing? You could rename Perl5 to Pearl Classic.
(see Python...)

~~~
skimbrel
Sadly, the situation is different from Python's.

Python 3 is well-defined, with a stable and usable implementation. You can
port your code to it today, and even big projects like Django are getting
ready to shift over to it.

Perl 6's definition continues to change, with no clear spec, and the leading
implementation (Rakudo) doesn't have half of the features built. Even if there
were a feature-complete implementation of it I wouldn't dream of starting to
port my code over to Perl 6 yet.

Perl 6 is really a different language, and should be named as such. With that
out of the way, Perl 5 can then get rid of its "5" and move on to release 16
in a year.

~~~
berntb
>>Sadly, the situation is different from Python's.

>>Python 3 is well-defined, with a stable and usable implementation.

It is hard to compare.

The main similarity between Perl 6 and Python 3 is probably the age. The main
difference is that Perl 6 is really, really ambitious.

------
smosher
That's disingenuous and doesn't clear up anything. Better: Perl 5 Version 16.

~~~
msbarnett
I'm having trouble seeing how any change to something as completely arbitrary
as version number schemes could be described as "disingenuous".

How would the Perl community be attempting to "deceive people via a false
impression of honesty" by dropping the long-since-atrophied major version
number?

What possible point of honesty is served by gluing that 5 to the language in
perpetuity, just to continue waiting for Godot to show up?

~~~
smosher
What people don't realize is that _Perl_ means something. (And it doesn't mean
_specifically Perl 5_.) I'd wager nobody advocating silly name changes (for
either 5 or 6) had been writing Perl 10 years ago. In short: it's a marketing
lie, and a poor one at that.

For the sake of (spiteful) example I submit Perl 4 should be now known as
Perl, and Perl 5 should deal with succession syndrome. _Oh but Perl 6 is
disruptive and confusing because it's so different_ you might complain, adding
that 5 wasn't so different from 4. You wouldn't have dealt with the
frustratingly subtle differences between Perl 4 and Perl 5 then. Or reams of
Perl 5 documentation written as Perl 4 code with errata.

------
Cloven
The problem with perls (5, 6, N) is that most of the competent, intelligent
committers were either (a) subverted by O'Reilly contracts into being ardent
defenders of the status quo, (b) fed up with waiting for years in order to get
unintelligible exegeses from a chief committer who apparently lost all
interest and was unable or unwilling to delegate, (c) driven into bafflement
by the rivening of p5p into scads of unmanaged sublists and lost interest, (d)
discovered thriving and engaged communities in languages not riddled top to
bottom by political, organizational and leadership problems, or (e) fell into
the black leather-winged embrace of crufty corporate nonsense that is python.

The numbering system merely hastened the demise by further making sure that
any sensible interested committer would first check to see what was going on
with the latest branch, discover it was the same godawful non-navigable
incompetent mess of splintered crazy version wreckage floating abandoned on a
lake of ennui that you can trivially see before you today, and run like fuck
in the opposite direction.

The principal problem with perl today is that it still exists, and that last
tenuous skeleton crew of 2-3 smart people who still struggle in vain to
breathe life into its long dessicated corpse is still capering about claiming
that there's still! some! path! to! relevance!, rather than doing the noble
thing and finding employ as dishwashers or carpet cleaning fluid salesmen.

