[Israel.pm] Perl 6 Critique

[Eli Billauer]

Hello all,

If there is something that worries me about the free software community 
(or call it whatever you want), it's the fact that we're slowly adopting 
concepts that come from a dark world. Do I need to mention a certain, 
large marketing/software company?

I'm happy with Perl 5.6.1. For all I care, freeze it and never change a 
thing about it anymore. (I know about 5.8.x, yes)

In a perfect world, Perl 6 is a good thing by definition. Why? Because 
if it's a good piece of software, people will like it and adopt it. If 
it's bad, this won't happen. When there are no forces around, the 
natural evolution eventually rules. So working on software and releasing 
it is at worst useless. It can't do any harm. But so much for a perfect 
world.

In the real world we have this company brainwashing us that we need to 
"upgrade" all the time, and that version 6.0 of Word is better than 
version 2.0. It's the upgrading mentality I'm afraid of. Because that 
means that there's a risk that Perl 6 will be adopted simply because it 
has a later version number, whether it's a good thing or not.

So I say: Some guys are working on Perl 6? How nice. If they'll ever 
make a release, it will be even nicer. But it will be really really nice 
if it will rise or fall according to if we all feel it's worth the 
migration.

What I really can't understand, is how one can reach the conclusion that 
a to-be freely released piece of software is a bad thing. Don't download 
it, if you don't like it. Once it'll be out, we may start discussing 
whether we like it or not. Maybe we can try to affect its structure and 
features. But just saying that it's bad? And coming from who it's coming?

   Eli

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Web: http://www.billauer.co.il