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Postings from January 2002
> What I don't want to start (and I may have done so anyway) is a simple
> name war. If you feel emotionally attached to "Perl", then fine, so am
> I. But if you feel that there is some compelling logic here that will
> affect the community, I would be very interested.
The reason why it's still Perl is that it is a relatively small
learning effort to write Perl 6 code using Perl 5 idioms. Eg $foo{bar}
becomes %foo{bar}, '.' becomes '_' etc, but the end code is still
largely recognisably Perl.
Contrast this to an experienced Perl 5 coder trying to pick up Python
or Ruby from scratch. A different order of magnitude altogether.
Clearly there's all the optional new stuff in Perl 6 which is strange and
needs learning, but that's no different from Perl 4 coders having to
get up to speed on refs, OO, and all the other 'strange' stuff that
Perl 5 introduced. (eg think how strange $self->SUPER::bar([qw(a b)])
was to Perl 4 coders.)
So in purely technical terms, I think Perl 6 is close enough to Perl 5
to keep the name.
In marketing terms, we absolutely must keep the name. If you're a fan
of Coke, are you more likely to switch to "Cherry Coke (tm)(c)(r)(etc)",
or "new cherry fizzo drink, bottled in the same factory that makes
Coke(tm)(c)(r)(etc)" ;-)
Just MHO.