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Re: Announcing Perl 7

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From:
Rocco Caputo
Date:
July 1, 2020 00:07
Subject:
Re: Announcing Perl 7
Message ID:
9a8799da-0919-d92e-2c2b-9158b97aa94b@pobox.com
On 06/30/2020 19:23, Darren Duncan wrote:
> On 2020-06-30 7:31 a.m., Rocco Caputo wrote:
>> On 06/30/2020 02:00, Darren Duncan wrote:
>>> On 2020-06-29 10:40 p.m., Tom Molesworth wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 30 Jun 2020 at 13:33, Darren Duncan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     On 2020-06-29 10:22 p.m., Tom Molesworth via perl5-porters wrote:
>>>>      > So one concern that does not seem to have been addressed by 
>>>> the "enable by
>>>>      > default" proposal is "what about CPAN". It used to be a 
>>>> selling point for
>>>>     Perl,
>>>>      > would be a shame to lose that.
>>>>
>>>>     Well I DID say that CPAN is one of those places where explicit 
>>>> versions SHOULD
>>>>     be used.  And if any don't, well CPAN is public, and as you 
>>>> demonstrated we can
>>>>     see what would break.  And so we now are in the position to fix 
>>>> those modules.
>>>>
>>>> Fix... how?
>>> Fix means make compatible.  And the argument is for the community at 
>>> large to do it, not just those who maintain the Perl interpreter.
>>
>> Not quite.  "Fix" means "make compatible with perl7".  As has been 
>> discussed and quantified earlier, a significant subset of CPAN can't 
>> be compatible with both languages simultaneously.  In that context, 
>> "fix" is in effect a top-down mandate for users to abandon perl5.
>>
>> "Fix" also deprecates 5PAN as broken, the belief of which makes the 
>> mandate more palatable.
>
> I am operating under the assumption here that it is possible and 
> sufficiently easy to write Perl code that is compatible with both Perl 
> 5 and Perl 7+ at the same time.  The vast majority of syntax should be 
> in the common subset of both versions, and when one writes to that 
> both should just work.  So "fix" means ensure just the common subset 
> is used.  I want a single CPAN to work for both versions. -- Darren Duncan

Given that perl7 is to be unshackled from perl5 compatibility, it's not 
unreasonable to expect that the "common subset" that fixed CPAN modules 
may use will shrink over time.  Modules wishing to use both languages 
will occasionally break and be required to re-evaluate whether to 
continue being compatible with one language or the other.  Those that 
continue to choose both may need to pare down their use of language 
features to remain within the shrinking common subset.

"Fix" is also fine word for this situation, as it can imply "neuter".

-- 
End of message.

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