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 Saturday, March 17, 2007

Python3000 vs. Perl6 ... Wanna Bet?

Perl6...
Python3000...

Both are redesigns of very popular dynamic/scripting languages.  Both have very strong, though very different, communities supporting them.

Out of the gate, Perl's plans were much more ambitious, including a new generic virtual machine.  Python's plans were more pragmatic; more of a language cleanup than a drastic redesign.

Perl 6 was officially announced nearly 7 years ago and I don't see a stable production release coming *any* time soon.  On the other hand, the idea of Python3000 was sorta tossed around for a while and swung into gear 2 years ago.

Guido (Python's BDFL) has been spearheading the effort, whereas Perl's leadership structure is much more anarchic (Where is Larry Wall these days?).  Guido has been very transparent and kept the community aware of his worries.

Some people saw this as a slippery slope...

Chromatic:

"Language redesign is difficult, isn’t it?  Once you start challenging base assumptions, you find that a lot of your previous conclusions are shaky, and good luck reigning in blue-sky ideas!

See you in 2007… or 2008… or 2009.

Best wishes,
a Perl 6 hacker"

I disagree..

I'd bet anyone money that I will be hacking on a stable release of Python3000 long before I'm using a stable version of Perl6... any takers?


(disclosure: I have written lots of code in both Perl and Python and am a fan of both)

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#    Comments [6] |
Saturday, March 24, 2007 5:39:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
Perhaps, but the goals for Python3000 are much more modest (and getting more so). The more interesting question is, will python ever be able to pull off a deep redesign, and if so, how long will *that* take?
D C
Saturday, March 24, 2007 8:28:49 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
Yeah, I said the scope was different.
But.. does Python need a deep redesign? There are some inconsistencies in the language that need to be cleaned up.. that is really the goal. Perl had some deeper issues that needed to be resolved for it to keep up with other modern dynamic languages (IMHO). Don't get me wrong.. I love Perl and I'd love to use Perl 6.. but it has been a long process with no end in sight.

-Corey
Corey Goldberg
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 2:45:06 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
You can find Larry Wall on #perl6 on Freenode under the nick TimToady (TIMTOWTDI). He's pretty active from what I can tell.
Vincent Foley
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 2:57:27 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
He is active, he just put in a couple commits 5 minutes ago. Perl6 may yet surprise you.
Anonymous
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:30:12 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
Perl 6 is probably a long way off, but if and when it comes out it is going to absolutely murder Ruby and Python. It may be like the second coming of Common Lisp, as it supports multimethods and a lot of stuff virtually unheard of outside of Lisp.
some guy
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 11:18:37 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
> It may be like the second coming of Common Lisp

is that a good or bad thing? :)

I am excited to see it in action.
Corey | coreyAT NOSPAMgoldb dot org
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