Compiled by Mark Keating (@shadowcat_mdk)
Come and Join the Party!
The official full first stable version, Perl6 version 6.c, was released on Christmas of 2015. The whole world can use it now and be a part of how awesome programming can be!
It enhances Perl’s long-term appeal with a proper object system including roles and multi-method dispatch.
Perl6 learns from other languages. For instance: taking threading from Java (simplified to a handful of methods); Foreign-function interfaces from Lisp make accessing libraries as simple as one line of code.
Regular expressions are now turned up to 11 with the introduction of Parser Expression Grammars, which let you tackle huge parsing tasks. Strictures and warnings are now automatic, cutting out huge swathes of potential errors.
Perl6’s mottos remain the same as Perl: “Perl is different. In a nutshell, Perl is designed to make the easy jobs easy, without making the hard jobs impossible.” and “There Is More Than One Way To Do It”. Now with even more -Ofun added.
(This Introduction is free but we will accept donations to the Enlightened Perl Organisation to continue to produce more materials, support conferences, programmers and attendees and to enhance the community.)