Ruby and Perl are great examples of massively popular languages that withered because the language/platform outpaced the community.
If the first question you’re asking yourself looking at a code base is “what version is this/do I know this version” then that language is not facilitating you.
The successful languages are ones where “the community” prioritises backward compatibility. Java, C, Python have backward compatibility spanning decades. There’s a few discontinuities (lambdas in Java 8, Python 3, C++) but in most cases there’s a clear mapping back to the original. Python 3 is an exception to this but the migration window was something like 15 years…
Busy engineers, scientists and academics have little interest in keeping up to date with language features. A computer and a programming language are a tool for a job and the source code is just an intermediate artifact. These are your “community”, and the stakeholders in your success.
Have you used them? Perl has version tags in source code and everything is feature gated including the stdlib. Python does none of that. The stdlib changes constantly and just looking at source code gives you no indication if you can run it with your installed python version.
> Perl has version tags in source code and everything is feature gated including the stdlib. Python does none of that.
> just looking at source code gives you no indication if you can run it with your installed python versionI prefer Perl's approach for both:
That's explicit, tied to a specific version, and executable code which can be scoped to a single source file.(I'd argued for that feature for years with my `Modern::Perl` feature bundle; glad to see that can be deprecated now.)
I don't believe that "from __future__" is the future-proofing you think it is, they just named it that way to be cute - a hypothetical 3.19 version couldn't even use it, since it's just a normal python import
the very idea of "future feature is not defined" is insaneoAnyway, I'd guess what they intend is
because python really gets off on conditional importsI was responding to the "Python does none of that" by pointing out that Python does indeed have features to help introduce new capabilities in a thoughtful way - I know it's not the same thing as something like conditional imports.
Not sure that >= is going to age well.
Perl have almost perfect backward compatibility, but small community and bad renown are not so good.
Backwards compatibility is terrible if what you're being backwards compatible with is terrible.
Isn’t the actual “platform” itself fragmented these days? Different language versions, different libraries, different “engine”?
I dunno it was 20 years ago I jumped ship when they tried shoehorning object oriented semantics into it. Eugh.
I do not really know which event you mentioned. But if you use the current version of perl interpreter. It still work for most of old versions. And new features keep safe for old perl.
Perl doesn't have "perfect backward compatibility" in the normal sense of the word. There is only Perl 5 which is perfectly compatible since it hasn't changed for 25+ years (which is how they achieved "compatibility" -- by not changing), and there's Perl 6 which isn't backward compatible and nobody really uses it.
> Perl 5 ... hasn't changed for 25+ years.
A major new version of Perl ships regularly. A few weeks ago the latest major new version shipped. From the 2025 changes document:
> Perl 5.42.0 represents approximately 13 months of development since Perl 5.40.0 and contains approximately 280,000 lines of changes across 1,600 files from 65 authors.
Skipping back 5 major new versions (to 2020):
> Perl 5.32.0 represents approximately 13 months of development since Perl 5.30.0 and contains approximately 220,000 lines of changes across 1,800 files from 89 authors.
2015:
> Perl 5.22.0 represents approximately 12 months of development since Perl 5.20.0 and contains approximately 590,000 lines of changes across 2,400 files from 94 authors.
2010:
> Perl 5.16.0 represents approximately 12 months of development since Perl 5.14.0 and contains approximately 590,000 lines of changes across 2,500 files from 139 authors.
There's been well over 10 million lines of code changed in just the core Perl codebase over the last 25 years reflecting huge changes in Perl.
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Perl 6 ... isn't backward compatible
Raku runs around 80% of CPAN (Perl modules), including ones that use XS (poking into the guts of the Perl 5 binary) without requiring any change whatsoever.
(The remaining 20% are so Perl 5 specific as to be meaningless in Raku. For example, source filters which convert Perl 5 code into different Perl 5 code.)
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But you are right about one thing; no one you know cares about backwards compatibility, otherwise you'd know the difference between what you think you know, and what is actually true.
> But you are right about one thing; no one you know cares about backwards compatibility, otherwise you'd know the difference between what you think you know, and what is actually true.
What the hell is this? Even if nobody I know cares about backwards compatibility, how does this relate to whether my knowledge is true or not?
Apologies for trivializing perl5's progress in the past 25 years, but come on, chill out dude.
I know people don't like Perl, I just want to add some info here. The Perl 5 Porters have restarted adding new features at 15 years ago. It has progressed from version 5.20 to 5.42. Although the speed is slower than popular languages, they are maintaining backward compatibility while adding new features.
Perl6 had been renamed to new language, Raku.
How have they withered? Does every programming language have to compete for world domination via cancerous growth? I thought that only applied to VC backed startups and public companies if the startups survive...
They’re not actively used in any circles I move in. The fact that your back is up suggests you have something invested in these antiquated niche tools.
Seriously? I tried Perl only once ever in my life time and I've never done Ruby.
Doesn't mean I have to deny them the right to exist because they don't have a "community*".
* more like a religion for some programming languages.
They have a right to exist. But there is strength in community. Successful platforms facilitate this and provide a means for participants to exceed the sum of there parts.
This can in turn fuel development of the platform therefore helping keep it relevant.
In recent times we call this “the network effect” and it applies to more than just social media.
What makes you think Ruby withered? It has been stagnant, but not withered.
The community withered. 10-15 years ago the cries of “Ruby” “Ruby” “Ruby” were deafening. I used Ruby and I really enjoyed and I thought I would leave Python behind but it but it never went anywhere from there. Somewhere around 3.x I think there were a load of breaking changes introduced and I imagine lots of people like myself just went back to using more stable platforms.