Announce: Rakudo Star - a useful, usable, “early adopter” distribution of Perl 6
After a decade of Christmasses, Perl 6 was officially released today as [url=http://github.com/rakudo/star/downloads]Rakudo * (“Rakudo star”). W00t.
For those who’ve been wondering about what it would be like to write Perl 6, the gates have been opened. Be sure to check out the Parrot Virtual Machine while you’re at it.
That was the only Perl thing I used for the Web! On the other hand Perl was quite useful to create some bioinformatics scripts…
BioPerl’s pretty huge, yeah.
Anyone used Ikonboard? Or tried to customize it or expand it?
That wasn’t the most enjoyable thing to do! Still the software itself was decent! That was the only Perl thing I used for the Web! On the other hand Perl was quite useful to create some bioinformatics scripts… So V6 is out… hmm 
Adobe Catalyst? Not that long ago (if that’s what you mean) >>> http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/intro-business-catalyst
Either way I have a soft spot for Perl, it’s like ASM (grandpa coding). 
Adobe???
Was that a joke? What does Adobe have to do with Perl? Isn’t one an evil corporate who hates Linux and Mac? The other one spits like a camel and smells like an onion, but loves open source and was birthed by UNIX : )
I’m talking about Catalyst, the large does-everything-and-uses-half-of-CPAN web framework for Perl. We’re running our local fire department site on it.
Perl 6 huh?
Tsk, and I just bought the 5.12 camel book. 
Mercifully it’s a lot slimmer than my previous 5.x version (5.8 or maybe 5.6?) version – which my nephew appears to have ‘borrowed’.
I agree this site is predominantly PHP/.NET - not even Ruby has made a dent in that.
I think the problems for Perl are a perceived clunkiness in CGI programming - it’s okay once you get your head round it and processing can be seperated from presentation.
After that, mod_perl programming starts to talk about server ‘stuff’ e.g. request phases, because mod_perl was written to exploit the Apache server for speed and quick response under heavy load. This is generally an area most PHP programmers do not want to know too much about.
You need control of your Apache configuration and Perl modules installation - something not usually offered by fasthosts, 123, godaddy and the like in the past - although far more widely available through the Virtual Host Systems now available through the likes of bytemark and others.
You basically need to know more to use mod_perl. mod_php installs and allows you to embed php into HTML straight away. On the outside this is far easier but php4 had some security issues with register_globals. The Shuhosin patch may make php safer.
From an employers viewpoint, there appear to be more php programmers than perl programmers which means they have more flexibility in whom they employ for less pay. So someone quits they have a larger pool to find a replacement.
Larger, global, very high traffic installations (bbc, ebuyer, amazon) favour mod_perl because they are global and high traffic. I suspect PHP doesn’t handle that scenario so well but it is okay for the average, low traffic site.
I suspect PHP is also popular with people who don’t have Comp Sci degrees.
All I know at the moment is Perl 6 is hugely different to Perl 5.
Regards
Lesley
BBC is worried about not finding enough Perl programmers… because the kids(current/future programmers) all think its some form of COBOL. They are wondering if they can switch to a language that DOES have enough programmers… which would mean, what’s popular but still able to do the job?
I know this because BBC employees go to YAPC. The Beeb uses Perl for much much more than just the blogs (I didn’t even know they had blogs lawlz).
We are trying to get the word out with blogs.perl.org though.
That’s a big choice facing them, spend lots of money chnaging to a new platform or pay some fantastic salaries to attract Perl programmers!
I think the best thing the Perl community could to is write so really good web applications to help get the word out.
Good luck with your efforts!
There would be many replies if this … no, nevermind, this announcement WAS on reddit, and many other Places of Nerd.
But this is SitePoint. This is not a place for Perl, (or Python, or Ruby without Rails). It’s a place for .NET and PHP mostly. That’s just the way it is.
I mean, when’s the last time someone wrote a SP article about Movable Type? Plack? Catalyst? Moose roles??
Considering Perl/Python is still used on some of the worlds biggest sites
The problem is, that’s what people think: those big old sites who are stuck with what they started. Nobody imagines anything like new sites running Perl. Python’s not actually that much younger, but it has that feel to it, so it’s not so bad there.
This just isn’t the place, but I’ll do my part, because I do not believe Perl is some web form of COBOL (because it isn’t). Beyond that, I don’t expect replies or anything. Or even much interest. Mostly, I just hoped to catch the eye of some passing forum lurker who, for whatever reason, happened to be in the PPO section.
Considering Perl/Python is still used on some of the worlds biggest sites I’m surprised there have been no replies.
Tsk, and I just bought the 5.12 camel book.
Lawlz, they do little updates, but we were just asking Larry the other week if/when there would be a 5.12 (or 5.14 or 5.16) rewrite of the book. It’s been 10 years… time for an update : ) My Llama is for 5.10 but I’m cool with that.
Don’t worry about “upgrading”… Perl6 is not the next Perl5. It’s a pretty different language and Perl5 will continue regular development.
Yeah, Perl6 is way different. Whole new grammar. Stole a lot from Haskell and Ocaml : )
Your points about PHP programmers are pretty spot-on… there were plenty of little discussions and talks around and basically, we’ve agreed Perl has a marketing problem, when hackers really don’t want anything to do with marketing. So there’s been a concerted effort to talk more about Perl outside of Perl dev networks etc… thus was born the Iron Man contest (Matt’s idea, prolly appeared out of a drinking session as usual lawlz), and blogs.perl.org and some other projects.
The point is, if Perl wants to continue as a living language, it needs to show newer programmers that it’s as valid today as Python, Ruby, c#, and PHP (tho’ Perl guys really don’t care about PHP except maybe to steal some PHP programmers and teach them Perl for their companies).
Sure some companies still have legacy systems from years gone past, but if use of Perl/Python was a big problem wouldn’t they have migrated away by now?
How about the BBC blogs, they’re relatively new (2009) and they chose MoveableType as their blogging platform?
Alex, take a look around you. SitePoint shouldn’t even have a Perl/Python section. This site is dedicated to “How can we use PHP to build web pages”.
But so long as they do have a Perl section, I’m going to continue my evangelisation.
thumps Alex’ head with a Bib— with the Camel book
I think the lack of replies pretty much says it all Stomme