What Happened to Perl 7? (2022)

State of Perl and the Perl 7 Plan

• Perl 7 was announced as a way to modernize defaults and marketing, but effectively stalled amid internal disagreements and leadership turnover.
• Many see Perl as now focused on maintaining what exists rather than introducing big language changes.
• Some argue Perl 5 has gained significant features over time (signatures, experimental class system, improved exception handling), but that these are poorly marketed and often gated behind use v... or “experimental” flags.

Stability vs. Evolution

• Strong praise for Perl’s backward compatibility: code from the early 2000s often still runs unchanged on current interpreters.
• This stability is seen as a major advantage over Python and some newer ecosystems, where version churn and dependency breakage are common complaints.
• Critics argue this compatibility stance has constrained meaningful evolution and left obvious “low-hanging fruit” (native OO, better exceptions, modern syntax) underdeveloped or delegated to CPAN.

Language Design, Modules, and Tooling

• Several commenters highlight long-standing design warts: smartmatch, implicit arrayref args, shifting sigils, list/scalar context, auto-flattening.
• CPAN is praised for breadth, but the module/build system is criticized as fragmented, overly powerful, and hard to automate/package.
• Frustration that many core needs (OO, switch, try/catch, exporters) arrive as third‑party modules rather than first‑class language features.

Perl vs. Other Languages

• For scripting and text processing, many still find Perl unmatched in expressiveness and regex power; it’s preferred over shell/awk for anything non-trivial.
• Others now default to Python, Ruby, Go, or JS/TS, citing better readability, typing, deployment (single binaries), and job-market relevance.
• Some see modern PHP (Laravel/Symfony) as a reasonable, evolving alternative; Perl is viewed more as a “legacy but solid” choice.

Use Cases and Adoption Today

• New greenfield applications in Perl are rare; most encounters are in legacy systems.
• Acceptable reasons to start new Perl projects: team expertise, desire for long-term stability, system administration and scripting, or simply enjoyment.
• Skeptics say choosing Perl now hampers hiring and collaboration and that learning Ruby or Python offers more future value.

Community and Governance

• The Perl 7 effort was affected by internal conflict and burnout, prompting new codes of conduct.
• Overall mood: respect for Perl’s past and stability, mixed with disappointment and resignation about its future trajectory.