Most Perl 6 will look like Perl 5

[Nigel Rantor]

Andy Armstrong wrote:
> On 30 Jan 2008, at 18:11, Nigel Rantor wrote:
>> If you don't believe that a language needs users to survive then 
>> that's fine, it just means we have different ideas of what "survival" 
>> means for languages.
> 
> 
> Well sure. I was failing to grasp how he got from "I don't like it" to 
> "we don't like it" where "we" is everyone outside the core language 
> team. If any individual doesn't like it then they shouldn't use it. 
> There is, however, often a problem with extrapolating from "I" to "we" 
> in matters of preference.

Yes, fair enough. To be honest I only replied because I thought that the 
conversation you guys were having was worthwhile but degenerating a bit 
because of the medium, email being great for miscommunication.

On this point I think that going from "I" to "we" isn't that much of a 
stretch though, if only because it has clearly (from the amount of 
responses generated) split the l.pm list into a few camps, so there are 
clearly quite a few people who share the same sentiments.

For myself, I was very excited when the whole Perl 6 thing started up 
years ago. I realised it wouldn't be here anytime soon though, and I'd 
rather it was done right than done quick.

I'm equally troubled by the people who are contributing to Perl 6 and 
come across as saying "if you don't like it then get involved" as the 
people who just bitch and moan.

Lots of people here have the ability to get involved but not the time. 
Not everyone who is going to be an end-user of Perl6 can possibly 
contribute to it. Equally random whinging gets us nowhere. There has to 
be some middle ground where people who expect to use the language when 
it is done can feedback to the people implementing it.

One question I have been thinking about tonight whilst travelling 
between friends houses has been "are complaints about syntax that 
'feels' wrong valid complaints?" I'm undecided. I guess I can see both 
sides. There's only so many syntactic constructions and you have to 
choose one. Equally, if the syntax chosen is fruity enough it may become 
a blocker to adoption.

I am not subscribed to any Perl6 lists, have these issues (or ones like 
them) been discussed there already? What was the outcome?

   n