Re: Improving p5p: Perl is going to stay Perl

Hi Neil [and all]!

On Sun, 16 May 2021 20:36:01 +0100
Neil Bowers <neilb@neilb.org> wrote:

> We just spent a painful year deciding that in fact, we're not going to enable
> strict by default, even though we all wish there was a way we could do that
> without inconveniencing a lot of people.
> 
> So we're not going to break backwards compatibility without a compelling
> argument. We want to move the language forwards more quickly than we have
> been, but we'll be sticking with the yearly release schedule, and every
> year's release should be a safe candidate for /usr/bin/perl.
> 
> We saw with Perl 6, that opening up the gates to many changes at the same
> time is not compatible with a regular release schedule. And as we saw with
> the transition from Python 2 to 3, no matter how well prepared you think you
> are, with a large body of deployed code, it's going to take years for all of
> your users to move over.
> 
> We want to make perl a better Perl, not a different language. We're not going
> to switch to Raku's model for sigils, or change to . instead of ->, for
> example.
> 
> Don't propose changes that go against these principles.
> 
> We don't want to discourage wild ideas, just as long as they're wild ideas
> that feel at least vaguely aligned with Perl's trajectory. If you're not
> sure, bounce your ideas off someone, or write them up a blog.

I admit that I've only read a small sample of that fight (and meta-fight, and
meta-meta-fight, and so on, along with a lot of censorship and personal
attacks/etc.). Nevertheless, like Joel on Software wrote on
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/03/17/martian-headsets/ the choice
between breaking backcompat or not is always hard (putting the developer between
a rock and a hard place), and I agree that reducing the boilerplate to "use
v7"/etc. may be the best solution.


-- 

Shlomi Fish       https://www.shlomifish.org/
https://youtu.be/GoEn1YfYTBM - Tiffany Alvord - “Fall Together”

I started out as a BASIC programmer. Some people would say that I’m
permanently damaged. Some people are undoubtedly right.
    — Larry Wall

Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - https://shlom.in/reply .

• Improving p5p: Perl is going to stay Perl by Neil Bowers
• Re: Improving p5p: Perl is going to stay Perl by Shlomi Fish
• Re: Improving p5p: Perl is going to stay Perl by Yuki Kimoto
• Re: Improving p5p: Perl is going to stay Perl by Darren Duncan