Re: Perl, the new generation

At 05:36 PM 5/10/01 +0100, Michael G Schwern wrote:
>Version numbers are, at best, an indication of the magnitude change.
>At worst they are a cheap marketing ploy.  I've always liked that
>Perl's version numbers are relatively free of marketing hoopla (the
>jump from perl3 to perl4 notwithstanding).  The move from 5.005_03 to
>5.6.0 style was jarring enough (and fairly well justified).  Its been
>so long since we've had an integer increment that it should be fairly
>shocking.

Eh, I fully understand that version number magnitudes are simply to attract 
attention, and that The Faithful don't need the glitz.  Since AFAICT the 
glitz doesn't hurt, though, it doesn't do any harm to give marketing all 
the help it can get; and let's face it, marketing hasn't been Perl's 
greatest strength.

I was one of the people calling for 5.006 -> 5.6, since the changes, to me, 
were greater than what was implied by an increment in the fourth 
significant digit.  And it worked, too; I finally saw a couple of articles 
in trade (non-geek) rags about the upgrade.  More or less the only articles 
about Perl I've seen there for 5 years.  (I'm talking about rags like 
Information Week, Internet Week, Computerworld, that sort of thing.)  I'm 
just applying the same principle here, comparing to the Perl 4 -> Perl 5 
change.

Like I said, I figure it's a long shot; I just thought I'd run it up the 
flagpole.

--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies
http://www.perldebugged.com