
Larry Wall announces that Perl6 is ready for production - anaolykarpov
https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/an-unexpectedly-long-expected-party/
======
pyrophane
I expect that the reaction from most of the HN community will be somewhat
similar to "why use perl these days when there are so many other more modern
choices," but reading the spec there are a lot of nice things in perl6,
including the static type system, macro support, and improved patter matching.
The syntax still feels a little antiquated, but there is an awful lot to like
in this new release, and i expect that so very expressive, not overly opaque
code will be written using this.

~~~
zoffix222
Note that Perl 6 now is really a brand new language. The old Perl continues to
chug along in the form of Perl 5 (with yearly releases and feature additions).
As such, Perl 6 _is_ a modern language, with all that you can expect to have
in one.

------
xaduha
I don't think he's saying that it is ready for production just yet. I don't
want to piss on this parade, it's certainly a milestone, but there are
problems too.

~~~
cygx
The compiler release that is happening today has not been vetted for
stability, performance, etc beyond the regular - it's as 'production-ready' as
any other of the monthly releases.

However, the language definition has been frozen, and Perl6 programs you write
after today are supposed to keep working.

Basically, it's a promise by the developers to stop breaking stuff willy-
nilly.

~~~
xaduha
So I gathered. It's an invitation of sorts, for people to start using it, but
let's not get ahead of ourselves with this 'production-ready' idea.

------
labster
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10786423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10786423)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10787764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10787764)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10788786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10788786)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10789464](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10789464)

Please look and see if there's already a recent thread, everyone. Also, this
wasn't the production-readiness announcement, this is an essay on the end of
the long Advent, and hopes for the future.

That said: yeah, it's happening today.

~~~
dang
None of those posts had a significant discussion, so they don't count as dupes
on HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
coetry
I'm excited by this, although I feel that the announcement a couple months
back about it being released this Christmas carried all the release hype with
it haha. I'm glad 6.Christmas is packaged and shipped. Have fun and happy
holidays everyone.

~~~
cygx
_I 'm glad 6.Christmas is packaged and shipped._

It isn't (yet). Stay tuned.

~~~
JadeNB
Do you know where an announcement will be posted when it is?

~~~
cygx
[https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/christmas-is-
he...](https://perl6advent.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/christmas-is-here/)

------
pcunite
Congratulations Larry. It is a big effort.

------
mempko
I was writing some perl 6 just as I saw this.

------
marshray
Perl6 seems like a fantastic language, but one of the things I'm most
interested to see how turn out is the way it is being branded for tweenage
girls.

NOTE TO DOWNVOTERS: This is not a joke. E.g.,
[http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2015/10/06/the-night-larry-
wall-...](http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2015/10/06/the-night-larry-wall-
unveiled-perl-6/) "the new butterfly logo for Perl 6 'is specifically
designed, among other things, to appeal to 7-year-old girls. The Python
community has done a much better job appealing to kids with fun stuff.'"

~~~
xaduha
> This is not a joke.

> is specifically designed, among other things, to appeal to 7-year-old girls

but this is

~~~
zoffix222
But why? Most of tech confs are sausage fests. It's time we start addressing
the sex inequality issue in our trade.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Maybe because smart people are usually interested in equal opportunity, not
equal representation.

~~~
cygx
Culture matters. It's not enough to have equal opportunity in theory, you also
have to make people realize that they have this option as well as make them
feel welcome.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
But just certain people for certain jobs, right? We don't need to make women
feel welcome in the mining community or men in the nursing one, do we?

~~~
DanBC
Every single time sexism in tech is mentioned someone will crawl out and say
"but what about women in mining?" or "what about men in nursing?"

What's happening? Are people too stupid to put "women in mining" into a search
engine? Too lazy? Too dishonest?

WIM (Women in mining)

[http://www.womeninmining.org.uk/](http://www.womeninmining.org.uk/)

Male Nursing

[http://www.nurselookup.com/index.html](http://www.nurselookup.com/index.html)

[http://www.aamn.org/](http://www.aamn.org/)

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> someone will crawl out

From a mine shaft, I hope. Please encourage your daughter to follow the dream
she doesn't know she has, yet, and go take her rightful place in the mine with
colleagues that mirror perfectly the composition of the general population.
She'll thank you later.

~~~
austinjp
Your previous point extolled opportunity over representation, but this comment
seems to suggest that opportunity itself can sometimes be inappropriate, and
hence harmful. Or have I misunderstood?

~~~
stefantalpalaru
What I was lampooning is not simple opportunity, but downright manipulation,
as benevolent as it may seem. That's the difference between allowing a child
and encouraging/cajoling them to do something.

When you mount a huge campaign to get girls to code, even if they are not
interested, are you doing the former or the latter? What about when you do the
same for hiring more women in certain areas? Or for getting more women
presenters in certain technical conferences?

And if we as a community decided that we should feel bad for being interested
in things that overwhelmingly attract males, why not extrapolate the proposed
solution? Maybe it gets absurd enough that we realize it's been wrong all this
time.

~~~
raiph
> downright manipulation ... huge campaign ... get girls to code, even if they
> are not interested ... decided that we should feel bad ... things that
> overwhelmingly attract males ... why not extrapolate

That's an impressive amount of speculating.

> Maybe it gets absurd enough that we realize

Indeed.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> That's an impressive amount of speculating.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Who_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Who_Code)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Girls_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Girls_Code)

[https://www.womentechmakers.com/](https://www.womentechmakers.com/)

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-
facebook-...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-facebook-
techprep-bsi-20151020-story.html)

[https://hackbrightacademy.com/about/](https://hackbrightacademy.com/about/)

[https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/women](https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/women)

~~~
raiph
My apologies. I had assumed that what you were talking about had something to
do with either Perl 6 or Camelia.

