We've been using Perl for many years. The current version of Perl is 5. Perl six has been under development for over ten years. One is tempted to think that it may not arrive, that we may be stuck with Perl 5 for the rest of our programming careers.
I'm beginning to think that we already have the next version of Perl, available today. Not a preliminary copy, or a pre-beta version, but a fully-functional version of the next programming language. Two versions, actually.
The next version of Perl may be ... Python. Or perhaps Ruby.
These are both successful scripting languages. They are not Perl, yet they can do quite a lot. They have the performance, the necessary classes, and the support of the open source community.
The open source community may agree with me on this issue. At the latest OSCON, the sessions were weighted to Python (and PHP, oddly). Perl was a distant fourth behind Python, PHP, and Ruby.
It is possible that Perl has served its purpose in the tech world, demonstrating that scripting languages are feasible. Perhaps it is time that Perl steps aside and lets other languages extend the art.
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