"Perl, the scripting language whose flexible connecting
features make it known as "the duct tape of the Web,"
will get a massive upgrade over the next 18 months from
its original author, Larry Wall."
"The language is being rewritten "from the ground up" to
bring it into the Web-based world and let it work with
other Internet technologies, said Nathan Torkington, one
of the developers on the Perl 6 project. Wall committed
the group to the rewrite at the recent O'Reilly Open
Source conference in Monterrey, Calif. Wall said a
preliminary version will be available a year from now and
promised that Perl 6 will be "better, stronger and faster"
than its predecessor."
"In unveiling the plans for Perl 6, Wall said it will be so
different from Perl 5 that it will require Perl 5 programs to
be recompiled. Hardt said a utility for automatically
recompiling Perl 5 programs is expected to be included
in Perl 6."
