

Perl 5.12.3 released - Phra
http://dev.perl.org/perl5/

======
toadi
Several years ago I would be raving about it. I attended several YAPC's
established the first perlmongers group in my country.

When I went to see the state of perl a few months back I noticed the language
is maturing, CPAN is still strong.

I think they have a PR problem.

~~~
loewenskind
It's not a PR problem. People have been trying to fix the "PR problem" for at
least half a decade. If that were the issue they would have made headway by
now.

The real issue is that a new programming language can be quite an investment.
Some people learn lots of languages but many people actually stick with _just
one_. Perl has nothing compelling over the other languages. You don't really
lose anything buy picking e.g. Python or Ruby instead. So people tend to pick
a language based on what cool new thing is written in it and that cool new
thing is never in perl. Perl always rushes in later with a "me too" copy but
it's never where a new breakthrough happens.

~~~
CurrentB
Not only that, but the threat of a non-backwards compatible upgrade being just
around the corner is a major point against picking up Perl at this time, and
the uncertain release time frame of Perl 6 makes that not exactly an
attractive choice for a language to learn.

~~~
mst
perl6 is a separate language designed by some of the same people.

I'm a perl5 hacker at heart and intend to continue to be.

The latest version of perl5 is version 12.3, released rather recently.

The websites for both languages now make this clear, but we'll probably need
to rename them both to "-something- perl" for people to stop being confused by
the names. Maybe in the next year or so.

~~~
darkandbrooding
The Zope community experienced similar (self inflicted) branding damage with
Zope 3. The goal of Zope 3 was to build a next-generation rapid app
development toolkit, incorporating lessons learned over the life of Zope 2.
This is perfectly laudable goal, but developers heard "zope" and thought they
could leverage existing knowledge, best practices, and tools. Then they
learned that "zope 2" products wouldn't work under zope 3. Then they learned
how much they would have to unlearn from one project to the other. Then they
gnashed their terrible teeth, and roared their terrible roars, and finally the
zope 3 developers got the message and renamed their framework "Bluebream." (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBream> )

As someone who worked at a shop that migrated from python/Zope to
java/hibernate/GWT during the "zope 3 WTF?" days, I can attest that the
confusion created by poor naming choices, and the lack of clarity in product
roadmaps, was indeed a factor in deciding to migrate entirely away from Zope.

------
mmaunder
The poem posted with the announcement is below. Come join us on the mountain
top.

\--

I saw a huge steam roller, It blotted out the sun. The people all lay down,
lay down; They did not try to run. My love and I, we looked amazed Upon the
gory mystery. 'Lie down, lie down!' the people cried. 'The great machine is
history!' My love and I, we ran away, The engine did not find us. We ran up to
a mountain top, Left history far behind us. Perhaps we should have stayed and
died, But somehow we don't think so. We went to see where history'd been, And
my, the dead did stink so.

Howard W. Campbell, Jr. "Reflections on Not Participating in Current Events"

~~~
rudiger
But isn't Perl the one we all left behind?

~~~
prog
I wouldn't say that.

Perl 5 is quite an amazing language once you get used to the syntax and begin
to grok it. I say this as a Python programmer who has only recently begun to
seriously learn Perl as my day job demands it. Earlier, I had used Perl only
off and on for small scripts. I was always put off by Perl syntax and
contexts. However, once I got over that and started using it seriously, it
does have a lot of neat features.

One example, I recently got to know about attributes[1] (which probably people
using Perl for some time may know already) and its neat uses. I can use
attributes to do what I would do with a Python decorator[2]. IIUC, this
feature has been in Perl since 5.6 (2003). Yes, I still like Python and I
continue to believe that its easier to write bad code in Perl than in Python
but I have a lot more respect, liking and understanding of Perl than I did a
month ago. IMO Perl 5 is well positioned for meeting enterprise needs as it
stands today. I understand this now after I spend the last 3 months debating
and discussing with the architecture board of my employer to introduce Python
as an officially approved language for our IT applications (I work for a large
corporation so we have a lot of policies ;)).

As a language, I like Perl 6 even more based on what I have read[3]. I hope to
spend some time playing with Rakudo sometime soon and eagerly await a
production ready package.

[1] <http://perldoc.perl.org/attributes.html>

[2] <http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/04/12/lightning-four.html>

[3] <http://perlcabal.org/syn/>

------
bch
Currently, the .pod delta for 5.12.3 actually seems to be the content of
5.12.0 -> 5.12.1, except for the title.

edit: this appears to be proper delta:
[http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl-5.12.3/pod/perl5123delta.po...](http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl-5.12.3/pod/perl5123delta.pod)

~~~
thomas11
I told Ricardo Signes, hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

------
igravious
Perl 5.12.3 represents approximately four months of development since Perl
5.12.2 and contains approximately 2500 lines of changes across 54 files from
16 authors.

Perl continues to flourish into its third decade thanks to a vibrant community
of users and developers. The following people are known to have contributed
the improvements that became Perl 5.12.3:

[...], Father Chrysostomos, [...] !!!

Good to see Father Chrysostomos cranking out the code in between delivering
presents around the world with his team of flying reindeer. Um. Seems like
there's at least one Joycean nerd Perl hacker out there, I seem to remember
that this is a coinage from near the beginning of Ulysses and it translates
from ancient greek into modern English as Golden Mouth?

~~~
nkurz
Actually, while he may be a closet Joycean, I think he's indeed an Orthodox
religious figure. I've shared some mailing lists with him, and got this
impression although I don't recall it being directly discussed. I could be
wrong, but your reindeer comments might be more impolite than you intended.

~~~
igravious
Of course I didn't mean to impolite, apologies if I caused any offense. Hey -
different cultural background, please no more down-votes, thanks!

From Wikipedia: James Joyce's novel Ulysses includes a character named
Mulligan who brings 'Chrysostomos' into another character's mind because
Mulligan's gold-stopped teeth and his gift of the gab earn him the title which
St. John Chrysostom's preaching earned him, 'golden-mouthed':[45] Chrysostomos
also refers to Stephen, the independent and exiled genius: "He peered sideways
up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention,
his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points.
Chrysostomos."

The original John Chrysostom died in 407 apparently.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom>

------
ahi
I teach a course that uses perl. I really wish we used something else. Perl on
Windows is a clusterfuck; including core modules that ship broken. I don't
really use Windows, except helping my students get stuff running, so maybe
programming in general is a clusterfuck on Windows?

~~~
chromatic
Try Strawberry Perl: <http://www.strawberryperl.com/>

------
ssn
What's new?

~~~
notthetup
Yea.. Can someone explain what's new in simple terms.. Lazy to dig into the
delta documentations..

~~~
chromatic
Perl 5.12.3 has a handful of bugfixes over 5.12.2. It's a very small change.
Anything interesting is in the delta between 5.10.1 and 5.12.0.

