This is frankly terrible advertisement for Perl 6.
I guess it is targeted at people that are already well-versed in Perl 6 (or at least Perl 5)? Maybe it should say so at the top so that people like me do not get a terrible first impression of it.
I guess it is targeted at people that are already well-versed in Perl 6 (or at least Perl 5)? Maybe it should say so at the top so that people like me do not get a terrible first impression of it.
In other words, they're about "hacking"...
They also server as a decent health check (e.g. Catalyst seems pretty much dead), but aren't really about advertising.
I do a fair amount of perl5 script maintenance, so am familiar with the language. Advents calendars are daily small chunks, an Ideal way to introduce the language but they turned this into a "look how clever" our language is post, which to me is "wow this is hard to read and maintain."
Lamentably these examples don't give me hope that Perl6 is going to be any better at being maintained.
I used to write quite a bit of Perl 5 and didn't really understand why Perl 6 seemed like it was trying to be everything to everyone and I didn't see what problem domain it was really the obvious choice for picking it over another easier to comprehend language.
FWIW I tried Python, I just didn't like it. I've programmed a lot of languages and most I'm fine with, I just didn't like the way Python felt.
It's also likely why there have been multiple (for the most part failed) projects over the years trying to do just what you asked for. Sometimes it bears fruit in other places, but future Perl has always been beholden to, and held back by past Perl, and Perl's extreme commitment to backwards compatibility. That's actually seeming to change a little recently, with newer version actually removing long deprecated features, which bodes well for interesting future change.
I agree, and when hiring recently I specifically noted that I didn't think anyone familiar with Python, Ruby, Javascript or Perl would have much problem easily learning another on that list. The operative words in the sentence question, which admittedly had little qualifying explanation, were "what programming feels like".
I find programming Perl is often and exercise in choosing the right Perl language options to fit your idea of what you want to accomplish as closely as possible, because the language was designed with affordances for how we think and express ourselves colloquially. This is how Perl tries to ease the act of expressing intent.
I find that Python tries to ease the act of expressing intent by limiting your options to the point that you have fewer choices, but the transcription of idea to code becomes rather ingrained and automatic.
Both are valid attempts at the act of easing programmer burden, but along that spectrum, I find them opposed. I can see how many Perl coders used to one approach might find the other stifling, at least initially.
Perl 6, at least seen through the lens of this post, doesn't appear to have fixed the write-only nature of Perl 5 and it's amazing ability to help you create truly obfuscated code first time round. No tools required.
unit module Jolly;
sub term:«\c[INVISIBLE TIMES]» is export { 42 }
sub infix:«\c[INVISIBLE TIMES]» is export {
$^a × $^b
}
sub prefix:«\c[INVISIBLE SEPARATOR]» (|)
is looser(&[,]) is export
{
say "Ho-ho-ho!";
}
say 42;
# OUTPUT:
# 1764
# Ho-ho-ho!
Despite all evidence, the Perl community persists in considering this a feature, not a bug. Which is a big part of why the Perl community is so much smaller these days than it used to be.