<story><title>Myths about Perl 6</title><url>https://aearnus.github.io/2019/07/06/perl-6-is-cursed</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ben509</author><text>Thinking about the point of Perl6...&lt;p&gt;I was trying to work out how to best structure a website to explain a language, so I did a quick survey of existing sites. It&amp;#x27;s very interesting what different languages choose to put on that first screen you see.&lt;p&gt;Many of them have a tagline. &amp;quot;Python is a programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively.&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Welcome to the Swift community. Together we are working to build a programming language to empower everyone to turn their ideas into apps on any platform.&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ruby is... A dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Perl6.org has this opening pitch:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hi, my name is Camelia. I&amp;#x27;m the spokesbug for Perl 6, the plucky little sister of Perl 5. Like her world-famous big sister, Perl 6 intends to carry forward the high ideals of the Perl community. Perl 6 is currently being developed by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers. You can help too. The only requirement is that you know how to be nice to all kinds of people (and butterflies). Go to #perl6 (irc.freenode.net) and someone will be glad to help you get started.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s focused on idealism and community; whereas other language sites are focused pretty strictly on making a case to users, Perl6 is presented as a fun hobby where you can meet nice people. It strikes me as a bit of a call back to the early days of computing when it was more oriented towards the hobbyist than industry.&lt;p&gt;If you accept the premise that the language exists primarily for people to have fun using the language, many of the design decisions make a lot more sense. Given that Perl5 has largely been supplanted by Python and Ruby, trying to fill that niche is a bit redundant. While other languages are making deliberate decisions to make sure a person trying to use their language can get work done, if someone has to go to a Perl6 forum to ask questions and talk about it, that&amp;#x27;s not a problem, that&amp;#x27;s largely the point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lizmat</author><text>Being a person who has been able to make a living doing fun things almost all of her life, I would argue that it is important for any programming language to be fun when you&amp;#x27;re working with it.  If it not, it is just $work.  I feel that if you do not have fun in what you do for a living, you cannot be creative in what you do.  And if you as a programmer can not be creative in what you create, you&amp;#x27;re just a commodity soon to be replaced by a small AI.</text></comment>
<story><title>Myths about Perl 6</title><url>https://aearnus.github.io/2019/07/06/perl-6-is-cursed</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ben509</author><text>Thinking about the point of Perl6...&lt;p&gt;I was trying to work out how to best structure a website to explain a language, so I did a quick survey of existing sites. It&amp;#x27;s very interesting what different languages choose to put on that first screen you see.&lt;p&gt;Many of them have a tagline. &amp;quot;Python is a programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively.&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Welcome to the Swift community. Together we are working to build a programming language to empower everyone to turn their ideas into apps on any platform.&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ruby is... A dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Perl6.org has this opening pitch:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hi, my name is Camelia. I&amp;#x27;m the spokesbug for Perl 6, the plucky little sister of Perl 5. Like her world-famous big sister, Perl 6 intends to carry forward the high ideals of the Perl community. Perl 6 is currently being developed by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers. You can help too. The only requirement is that you know how to be nice to all kinds of people (and butterflies). Go to #perl6 (irc.freenode.net) and someone will be glad to help you get started.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s focused on idealism and community; whereas other language sites are focused pretty strictly on making a case to users, Perl6 is presented as a fun hobby where you can meet nice people. It strikes me as a bit of a call back to the early days of computing when it was more oriented towards the hobbyist than industry.&lt;p&gt;If you accept the premise that the language exists primarily for people to have fun using the language, many of the design decisions make a lot more sense. Given that Perl5 has largely been supplanted by Python and Ruby, trying to fill that niche is a bit redundant. While other languages are making deliberate decisions to make sure a person trying to use their language can get work done, if someone has to go to a Perl6 forum to ask questions and talk about it, that&amp;#x27;s not a problem, that&amp;#x27;s largely the point.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>futureastronaut</author><text>The prominent mascot is more of a reflection of the times when Perl 6 marketing materials were written. It was during the heyday of whimsy and _why&amp;#x27;s Poignant Guide to Ruby. It feels a little forced to me.</text></comment>