Definitely. And as I have lamented in several places online, as well as verbally in discussions about it, I really love Perl, the language, despite its warts. (For example, I view the slurpy subroutine argument style to be an advantage, if used correctly, rather than a wart; that said, having the option of formal parameters would be nice...)
I think we are well past the point now where the language itself is no longer the center of the discussion. Or should not be. What we have is a single back end that's difficult to work on, and which can only target one platform. It's compiled C. Naturally, that's not so bad, as we see Perl is everywhere that Linux is. Which is ... basically everywhere.
But how about a Perl 5 interpreter for the JVM? How about a Perl 5 to Javascript compiler (sort of like Clojurescript)? Or just any other target you can imagine. I really feel like the difficulty of working on the Perl 5 internals limits the language--and ultimately, will kill it.
"Kill it," of course, is a relative term. Perl 5 will most likely never truly die. Indeed, I'm writing (what I think is pretty cool) Perl 5 code right at this moment, and putting it on Github and CPAN.
But in terms of attracting new blood, new developers, young teams of vocal and enthusiastic programmers... I just don't see that happening. To me, it's a great sadness. I have yet to find another language that I love as much as Perl (and I wouldn't mind doing so, at this point).
I think we are well past the point now where the language itself is no longer the center of the discussion. Or should not be. What we have is a single back end that's difficult to work on, and which can only target one platform. It's compiled C. Naturally, that's not so bad, as we see Perl is everywhere that Linux is. Which is ... basically everywhere.
But how about a Perl 5 interpreter for the JVM? How about a Perl 5 to Javascript compiler (sort of like Clojurescript)? Or just any other target you can imagine. I really feel like the difficulty of working on the Perl 5 internals limits the language--and ultimately, will kill it.
"Kill it," of course, is a relative term. Perl 5 will most likely never truly die. Indeed, I'm writing (what I think is pretty cool) Perl 5 code right at this moment, and putting it on Github and CPAN.
But in terms of attracting new blood, new developers, young teams of vocal and enthusiastic programmers... I just don't see that happening. To me, it's a great sadness. I have yet to find another language that I love as much as Perl (and I wouldn't mind doing so, at this point).