[sf-perl] Perl 7 announced

[Dean Hamstead]

https://news.perlfoundation.org/post/perl_7_announced_sawyerx_conference

The Perl programming language will take a strategic step forward with 
the planned release of Perl 7. This development, announced by Sawyer X 
at the Perl Conference in the Cloud, will enable usability enhancements 
as standard and disable antiquated behaviours.

Perl 7 will make it easier to attract new developers and add 
quality-of-life improvements for existing developers while maintaining 
broad compatibility with existing codebases. This paves the way for 
future major versions enabling further and more significant improvements 
to the language.

Out-of-the-box settings of Perl 7 include strict language syntax which 
improves code quality and consistency, as well as other modern defaults. 
A compatibility mode allows version 7 and later Perl to operate with 
older defaults such as those from Perl 5, so older scripts and modules 
can still be used unmodified. Overall, the change to Perl 7 should 
reduce the tribal knowledge required to get applications up and running 
quickly and reliably.

The changes that enable Perl 7 are under active development and major 
stakeholders are testing alpha code. Release candidates will be made 
available over coming months and community engagement and feedback is 
welcome.

Full details of the changes are outlined by brian d foy on Perl.com

Ken Power, Vice President of Product Development, cPanel L.L.C. is 
pleased with the announcement. He commented: "We’re very excited about 
the announcement of Perl 7! More than just a new version or a number, it 
represents a sustainable path forward for the Perl language and 
community. It represents an opportunity to rejuvenate interest in Perl, 
to attract new developers, to grow the community, and provide assurance 
for companies like cPanel that the language can meet the expectations of 
the modern developer."

What about Perl 5?
Perl is an important component of many GNU/Linux and Unix systems, and 
used in software such as Git, autoconf, and GNU parallels. First 
released by Larry Wall in 1994, Perl 5 was a major write to the language 
he invented as a personal work project in 1987. Perl popularized regular 
expressions, a feature now found in almost every mainstream language, 
and was instrumental in the advancement of the Web in its early days. 
Perl releases on a yearly schedule.

The current release is v5.32, shipped in June 2020 which will go into 
long term support once the new version is released. This support is 
expected to be tailed off between 2025 and 2030, allowing time for 
organisations to plan the changes needed to accommodate newer releases. 
(What about Perl 6?)

Stuart Mackintosh, President of The Perl Foundation stated: "On behalf 
of The Perl Foundation, I want to thank the people who have invested a 
great deal of time and effort planning this release and the volunteers 
and companies who have supported and sponsored our work."

More information
For more information about this announcement, please contact The Perl 
Foundation press office at press at perlfoundation.org

Technical discussions are taking place on the Perl IRC channels and 
around the Conference in the Cloud this week. General discussion uses 
the hashtag #Perl7.
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