=head1 NAME
-perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.4 $, $Date: 2002/01/18 21:00:17 $)
+perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.7 $, $Date: 2002/02/21 14:49:15 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
At The Second O'Reilly Open Source Software Convention, Larry Wall
announced Perl6 development would begin in earnest. Perl6 was an oft
used term for Chip Salzenberg's project to rewrite Perl in C++ named
-Topaz. However, Topaz should not be confused with the nisus to rewrite
-Perl while keeping the lessons learned from other software, as well as
-Perl5, in mind.
+Topaz. However, Topaz provided valuable insights to the next version
+of Perl and its implementation, but was ultimately abandoned.
-If you have a desire to help in the crusade to make Perl a better place
-then peruse the Perl6 developers page at http://www.perl.org/perl6/ and
-get involved.
+If you want to learn more about Perl6, or have a desire to help in
+the crusade to make Perl a better place then peruse the Perl6 developers
+page at http://dev.perl.org/perl6/ and get involved.
-The first alpha release is expected by Summer 2001.
+Perl6 is not scheduled for release yet, and Perl5 will still be supported
+for quite awhile after its release. Do not wait for Perl6 to do whatever
+you need to do.
"We're really serious about reinventing everything that needs reinventing."
--Larry Wall
can parse Perl." You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For
example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look
OK, while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never
-write "PERL", because perl isn't really an acronym, apocryphal
+write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal
folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding.
=head2 Is it a Perl program or a Perl script?
Over a hundred quips by Larry, from postings of his or source code,
can be found at http://www.cpan.org/misc/lwall-quotes.txt.gz .
-=head2 How can I convince my sysadmin/supervisor/employees to use version 5/5.005/Perl instead of some other language?
+=head2 How can I convince my sysadmin/supervisor/employees to use version 5/5.6.1/Perl instead of some other language?
If your manager or employees are wary of unsupported software, or
software which doesn't officially ship with your operating system, you
(Well, OK, maybe it's not quite that distinct, but you get the idea.)
If you want support and a reasonable guarantee that what you're
developing will continue to work in the future, then you have to run
-the supported version. As of April 2001 that probably means
+the supported version. As of January 2002 that probably means
running either of the releases 5.6.1 (released in April 2001) or
5.005_03 (released in March 1999), although 5.004_05 isn't that bad
if you B<absolutely> need such an old version (released in April 1999)
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
-Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Tom Christiansen and
-Nathan Torkington. All rights reserved.
+Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Tom Christiansen and Nathan
+Torkington. All rights reserved.
This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.