Perl 6 is here and people in the Perl community seem to be excited, but I don’t understand why. Perl 6 is a bit sexier than Perl 5. It’s got quite a few whiz-bangs I’d like to use. However, I’m likely never going to use it, and I think the same is true for the other established businesses using Perl 5. Here’s why:

There is no real migration path from Perl 5 to Perl 6. If you have any significant code base in Perl 5 you’re going to keep working in Perl 5.

If you decide to up and rewrite your entire system, are you going to choose Perl 6? As amazing as Perl 6 is, I don’t think so. I think you’re going to pick Javascript and node.js. The reason is simple, Javascript has a lot of the same flexibility as Perl, it’s faster than Perl, and there’s an almost immeasurable amount of work being put into Javascript libraries.

I’ve always said, much to the dismay of my Perl community compatriots, that developers go where the jobs are. If there aren’t businesses adopting Perl 6 in a major way, it will be a major failure. So now the question is, how do you compel a new business, or an old business writing a new app to use Perl 6 instead of Perl 5 or Javascript? I’ve been searching for the answer myself as a business owner. I want to love Perl 6, but I can’t find a business case for it.

[From my blog.]