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Raku / problem-solving

🦋 Problem Solving, a repo for handling problems that require review, deliberation and possibly debate
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"Perl" in the name "Perl 6" is confusing and irritating #81

Closed lizmat closed 4 years ago

lizmat commented 5 years ago

Perl 6 was initially conceived to be the next version of Perl. It took way too long to mature to an initial release. Meanwhile, people interested in taking Perl 5 along, took back the reigns and continued developing Perl 5.

Having two programming languages that are sufficiently different to not be source compatible, but only differ in what many perceive to be a version number, is hurting the image of both Perl 5 and Perl 6 in the world. Since the word "Perl" is still perceived as "Perl 5" in the world, it only seems fair that "Perl 6" changes its name.

Since Larry has indicated, in his video message to the participants of PerlCon 2019 in Riga, that the two sister languages are now old and wise enough to take care of themselves, such a name change would no longer require the approval of the BDFL.

lizmat commented 5 years ago

I would therefore propose to change the name to "the Camelia Programming Language" or "Camelia" for short, for several reasons:

EDIT: Damian Conway had persuasive reasons to use "Raku" instead of "Camelia". My proposal is therefore changed to use the name Raku instead.

AlexDaniel commented 5 years ago

Because we don't have this type of tickets very often, here's a reminder of how it goes for solutions that require consensus, specifically for this ticket:

Edit1: clarified that the PR is only needed later once jnthn is OK with the change Edit2: recommend people to be short and on point

nxadm commented 5 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly with @lizmat. The name Perl 6 dates from a time when the project had a completely different scope and timetable. Today, people outside the Perl echo chamber can't differentiate between Perl 5 and Perl 6, besides making the wrong --but obvious-- assumption the former is the old version and the latter the new one. Perl 6 is a new language with a smaller community and ecosystem compared to Perl 5, and like every new language needs to find its own way to a wider usage. This needs to be acknowledged: there is only so far you can go on the shoulder of the older language.

On one hand, Perl 5 is damaged by the startup status op Perl 6, not only because of the squatting of the next major number, but also because the new language can't yet deliver on what people expect from a top 10 language. Why would they give Perl 5 a chance when the latest version has a very small ecosystem and not a lot of jobs available yet? On the other hand, there is no denying that the popularity of Perl 5 is decreasing. Why would you try this hip new language when the main implementation is loosing mindshare?

@lizmat bets of the success of both languages, and who know, maybe it can be still one meta-community.

genehack commented 5 years ago

The video from Larry referenced by Liz in the ticket description can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2e0xSOHd-0

nige123 commented 5 years ago

Here are some criteria for a good language name:

"Camelia" ticks many of these boxes, although I prefer something shorter to type at the command-line. I wonder if we can come up with something shorter?

shell> camelia hello.cml
shell> cml hello.ca
shell> cm hello.cma
shell> ca hello.ca

"raku" and "ofun" were two names that ticked all the boxes above.

RaycatWhoDat commented 5 years ago

I don't have much of a horse in this race - in fact, this is my first comment - but, regarding the previous comment, camelia doesn't necessarily need to be the name of the command-line tool. In D, they use either dmd/gdc/ldc or dub. Maybe the same concept could apply here?

vrurg commented 5 years ago

Perhaps Camelia must not be a command line tool. Perhaps it has to be:

$ rakudo -v 
This is Rakudo version 2019.07.1-126-g90ffa349c built on MoarVM version 2019.07.1-72-g352ae27e4
implementing Camelia 6.d.

Anyway, renaming would result in so many different sorts of problems ranging in severity from "nah, nothing to worry about" to "oh, f*!" that compiler's name could simply be ignored as irrelevant.

As to the name itself. I personally don't care about it as I care more about the language itself. Yet, Camelia I like more than any other proposal so far. Actually, I just like it.

nxadm commented 5 years ago

@vrurg That is pretty much what rakudo-pkg does for Linux packages (link "perl6" to "rakudo" and "raku"):

https://github.com/nxadm/rakudo-pkg/blob/master/docker/pkg_rakudo.pl#L64

ajs commented 5 years ago

Here are some pros and cons that I don't see discussed above:

wbraswell commented 5 years ago

I have already been promoting "Perl 6 AKA Raku", and I will be quite happy to promote "Perl 6 AKA Camelia" in the future, if this proposal is accepted. I will even be willing to drop the "Perl 6" eventually and just talk about "Camelia" as a language.

For the record, I like both names "Raku" and "Camelia", although I tend to agree with most everything @lizmat says (in general), so if she thinks "Camelia" is better then I will support this proposal 100%.

lindleyw commented 5 years ago

The right proposal at the right time.

tadzik commented 5 years ago

Frankly, I don't think I agree.

The reality is confusing (and irritating) as you say – no doubt about that. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to name Perl 6 “Perl 6”, or maybe it was a mistake to not actually replace Perl 5 in a reasonable timeframe. However, I think the damage is done and the ship has sailed. I think the confusion may be with us forever, and I really don't think that a name change is going to do anything about it.

I don't see how Perl 5 is going to benefit from this. We're freeing the name, yes. They're free to reuse the versions now in however way they like, yes. Are they going to name the successor to 5.30 “Perl 6”? Of course not – that would cause more confusion, make them look stupid and make whatever spiritual successor of Perl 6 we could think of look obsolete. Would they go up to Perl 7 with the next major change? Perhaps, but they can do that anyway: they're another grown-up language that can make its own decisions :)

I'm not convinced it would do anything to improve Perl 6's image either. Being Perl 6 is “standing on the shoulders of giants”. Perl is a strong brand. Many people have left it because of the version confusion, yes. But I don't imagine these people coming back to check out some new Camelia language that came out. They might however decide to give Perl 6 a shot if they start seeing some news about it – “oh, I was using Perl 15 years ago... is this still a thing? Is that new famous version finally being out and useful? I should check it out!”

Additionally, I think that aside from the potential benefits of the change we should consider the potential damage. Once the word gets out that “Perl 6 is no longer being developed”, do you think that this will do Perl 5 any good? The fact that their supposed replacement was “finally abandoned”? Then also, people who decide to check out Camelia years from now, aren't they going to think “oh, wait, that's that Perl 6 thing that was actually dropped” – or maybe “oh, that looks like some sort of a weird spin of this Perl 7 that came out recently”.

Especially considering the potential damage to both our languages and communities, I think at the very least the Perl 5 community should be consulted on this. I know some of them have previously expressed joy at the idea of “the freeing of the name”, often for dubious reasons, but I think the issue is bigger than just us and it's fair to consider the opinion of at least the Perl 5 pumpking – and ideally also the Perl 5 loosely defined “cabal” :)

Now, I get that this issue is brought up whenever a question or a myth or a problem of the popularity of Perl, 5 or 6, is brought up – and for an understandable reason. The name confusion is a marketing and a visibility problem. But is it really the problem? Isn't the renaming idea a micro-optimization of the image of Perl?

C and C++ don't seem to be bothered by it too much. Neither do C and D. Or C++ and C# (the latter of which I like to read as C-plus-plus-plus-plus ;)). Nobody doubts that C++ is alive, that C is still a thing etc. Nobody really considers either of them dead. And the reason for that, I think, is that both of them are very much visible in the programming world, and not just in their own bubbles (except for D, perhaps). There's still people who get confused at the idea of C and C++ – or Java and JavaScript – but those are not actual programmers who are interested in this thing. Nobody who follows the programming community (and the “market”) in any way would ever confuse any pair of these. I think that's because all of these languages have a strong enough presence that any name problem of theirs is not really a problem at all.

I feel like the name debate gets brought up – by both sides – as a scapegoat of bigger issues. The reason why Perl 5 is considered dead is because the overwhelming majority of those considerers haven't seen Perl 5 being used in the last 10 years – and probably haven't seen a Perl 5 programmer either. Same goes for Perl 6 – it's hard to argue that Perl 6 is finished and ready when a single hand is more than enough to count the real-world uses of it. These issues will not go away with the rename. Perl, the old Perl 5, will still need to prove itself as the “still alive and better than ever”. Camelia, the old Perl 6, will still need to prove that it's a relevant language in a saturated programming market – and this time without the existing brand recognition and legacy that it has. A new name is not a killer app.

I think the renaming would do more harm than good. I'm not convinced that it will by itself change anything in the public image – whoever cares about Perl already knows the difference, and whoever does not care will not even bother to read the renaming announcements. If the Perl family of languages are to make – and enlarge – their impact on the world it has to be done with code, not words – semantics, not syntax, if you pardon the awful pun.

In any case, if Perl 6 is indeed to be renamed, I'd rather if it took a side turn rather than teleporting completely elsewhere. A name like “Perlsix” would still, imho, pass all the tests in our naming test suite, while it would also show pride of our legacy rather than running away from it. The world and the market of programming languages is crowded and cruel. I think we stand a better chance as a two-headed monster than by marking one of us as “finally not even meant to be replaced” and hiding the other in the obscurity by essentially starting the branding effort from scratch.

I hope that you, the people who actually make Perl 6 a reality, don't mind my use of “we” on this wall of text :) I love you all, and I trust you'll make the right call, whatever that call might be. I just felt like reacting with more than a glorified “:/” emoji ;)

jberger commented 5 years ago

Are they going to name the successor to 5.30 “Perl 6”? Of course not – that would cause more confusion, make them look stupid and make whatever spiritual successor of Perl 6 we could think of look obsolete. Would they go up to Perl 7 with the next major change? Perhaps, but they can do that anyway: they're another grown-up language that can make its own decisions :)

I hope that this proposal, which I support, doesn't get derailed by how Perl 5 will respond to it. Clearly though, it will need to do some corresponding change to un-confuse the story from that side as well. Certainly the number 6 would never be used. I would propose doing what Java did and "promote" the "minor" version number. In that way Camelia could live in harmony with Perl 32 or whatever the current minor release is when it happens and there would be plenty of intellectual space between 6 and 32 or whatever that hopefully no one is confused by that going forward. Of course that's not my call either and it will be up to p5p to make whatever choice they feel will break the marketing log jam and help both languages assert their "not dead"-ness to the world at large, which I think we all agree, is the goal, even if we sometimes differ on how to get there.

Grinnz commented 5 years ago

Especially considering the potential damage to both our languages and communities, I think at the very least the Perl 5 community should be consulted on this. I know some of them have previously expressed joy at the idea of “the freeing of the name”, often for dubious reasons, but I think the issue is bigger than just us and it's fair to consider the opinion of at least the Perl 5 pumpking – and ideally also the Perl 5 loosely defined “cabal” :)

I will stay out of this except to say, from the side of the Perl 5 "cabal", I wholeheartedly support this proposal and the potential "damages" you cite to Perl 5 are in my opinion non-issues, especially compared to the damage that continues to be done by "Perl 6" existing officially. Proper marketing is everything.

Kaiepi commented 5 years ago

They might however decide to give Perl 6 a shot if they start seeing some news about it – “oh, I was using Perl 15 years ago... is this still a thing? Is that new famous version finally being out and useful? I should check it out!”

The language being called Perl 6 may be beneficial for swaying former Perl users to use it, but what about people that have never used Perl before? I find the opposite is the case most of the time; people don't want to try Perl 6 because they see Perl and think "oh that's that write-only language" when Perl 6 doesn't have that issue at all. Perl's a strong brand, sure, but we can't ignore the reputation it's gained among people that don't use it.

FTR, I'm still undecided as to whether or not I support this.

vrurg commented 5 years ago

Evolution vs. revolution... Such abrupt name change being done at once is a revolution. While sometimes revolutions bring changes for better, they're always harmful and painful. Evolution takes longer and may end up in a dead end, but it's usually more reliable process and provides more stable results.

Here is what I mean by that. Maybe we must do what was supposed to be done for Raku? Make it Perl 6 Camelia and just give it a chance. If over time Camelia takes over then this is how things are supposed to be. And if not – Perl 6 will thrive forever.

In either case, Perl 6 is occupied now and forever. It will most assuredly remain in the sources and many docs for long if not forever. Barely anybody would bother renaming their scripts and modules changing extensions – so, .pm6, and .p6, and alikes would stick around.

One things I know for sure: this proposal must be the last of its kind. This discussion itself brings in more harm then any name attached to the language.

nxadm commented 5 years ago

Here is what I mean by that. Maybe we must do what was supposed to be done for Raku? Make it Perl 6 Camelia and just give it a chance. If over time Camelia takes over then this is how things are supposed to be. And if not – Perl 6 will thrive forever.

If there is something I would oppose, is going for a do-over of a (well intended) failure. Rename and let both languages grow or, just do nothing acknowledge the consequences. But rehashing the same discussion every six months and picking non-solutions hasn't worked for many years, being narratives of broken analogies ("sister languages) or something that completely neglects to work on the problem ("a name with Perl in it").

@zoffixznet's alias plan made sense then because it was meant as a first step for a renaming when people's mind weren't open yet to the idea. Listening to the Perl 5 Pumpkin's talk at TPC-USA made one thing very clear for me: the Perl 5 people are moving on, and Perl 6 is not part of the roadmap.

tony-o commented 5 years ago

@nxadm the alias was a worst of both worlds compromise. We need to either rename the lang or stop discussing it, the cyclical [re]discussion is most of the damage at this point.

@tadzik's suggestion for a name (if we rename) lgtm but, whatever, not like I'm going to stop contributing either way.

kentfredric commented 5 years ago

I'm not raising any objections, however, 2 things to consider:

  1. Camelia is usually spelt with 2 "L"'s (with only one notable exception in wikipedia), not 1, and this could potentially be a place for repeated and predictable mistakes.
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia_%28cipher%29
JJ commented 5 years ago

Well, the single l can be our brand...

thoughtstream commented 5 years ago

I'm long on the record as being in favour of a different name.

And I have no particular objection to the name "Camelia", which has good searchability and strong associations with both Perl 5 and Perl 6.

But I'm nervous about voting on this proposal without at least a brief discussion on the actual name we choose. It feels like we're being offered a either/or choice: "Perl 6" or "Camelia", without any consideration of other possibilities.

I don't mean to suggest that Liz hasn't considered those other possibilities, or that there haven't been similar discussions previously, or that Liz's point about starting from scratch with some other name isn't very well made. And I certainly understand the psychological benefits of making this a simple fait accompli.

But if this change is really happening, and if this discussion is going to decide that, and if this language really is to be a hundred-year language, then I still feel we ought to at least consider some alternatives as part of this conversation. As, indeed, several other contributors have already done.

In particular, I think we need to discuss whether "Raku", the alternative name Larry proposed, is a viable possibility. It is substantially shorter than "Camelia" (and hits the 4-character sweet spot), it's slightly more searchable, has pleasant associations of "comfort" or "ease" in its original Japanese, in which language it even looks a litte like our butterfly mascot: 楽. It also makes the "Rakudo" compiler mean "The Way of Raku". On the other hand, Google Translate claims "raku" means "sheep" in various African dialects, "rags" in yet another, and "cancer" in Serbian. :-(

I fully agree that "Rakudo" itself is out-of-bounds, as it's already firmly established as the name of the pre-eminent compiler for the language, and we definitely want to preserve the linguistic distinction between the language and its various implementations.

Liz also mentioned an alias I have previously used when teaching Perl 6: "Albus". This is not Harry Potter reference (though the "World's Greatest Wizard" association doesn't necessary hurt), but rather it's the Latin word for a pearl (and also means "clean" or "shiny" or "auspicious"). It's also shorter than "Camelia", more searchable than either "Camelia" or "Raku", and has no negative connations that I can find in other languages. On the other hand, there that "kindly, old, slightly loopy eccentric" association from Harry Potter as well.

Another name I have previously suggested is "Zeta", which is the sixth letter of the modern Greek alphabet, and also the name in many European dialects of the letter 'Z': a fitting association for the "ultimate programming language". Curiously, its numerical value in Greek is 7 (it was the seventh letter in Ancient Greek), but maybe that covers us going forward too? It's short, has no negative linguistic associations, but it's not especially searchable (being swamped by the Riemann Zeta Function). It has a cool looking symbol (ζ), which we could claim was pronounced "The Language Formerly Known As Perl 6". There's a slight clash with the 1980s ZetaLisp programming language...though everyone who cares about that is probably now either retired or insane. ;-)

There have been numerous other suggestions as well, of course. I'm not for a moment suggesting that we particularly need to debate all (or even many) of them, nor ultimately to choose anything other than "Camelia". I just think that we ought to consider the possibilities before we make so significant a change. Not my suggestions especially, but at very least Larry's preferred alternative of "Raku".

After all, imagine if "Amazon" had persisted with Bezos' first choice of "Cadabra", if "Friends" had gone with the pitched title of "Insomnia Cafe", if "Black Sabbath" had stuck with their original "The Polka Tulk Blues Band", or if "Brexit" had remained "TaxAvoidancexit", or "Bigotrentrance", or "To(r)yStory", or "ShortingThePound", or "DroolBrittania"?

Seriously, though, rebranding and relaunching this 20-year project is a huge opportunity...and risk. And, in this case, a vastly emotional and emotive one as well. We're on the right course, in my opinion, but should take all the time we need, and examine all the possibilities we can, to ensure we get it right.

FCO commented 5 years ago

I like ofun

Sent with GitHawk

nxadm commented 5 years ago

I think a core part of @lizmat 's proposal (and the course of action proposed by @AlexDaniel) is short-cutting a hypothetical never-ending discussion about the name before a decision is taken on the principle. She plays it safe and provides a default choice in case we're paralyzed and stuck in choice discussion for ever. This way she acknowledges people that would be OK for renaming if most people agree, but are allergic to the expected bikeshedding and the corresponding stress and waste of energy.

I am not fond of the Camelia name myself because I am one of those people that dislike the mascot, but even then the name it's a good solution the problem in my eyes. @lizmat 's talk makes it also very clear she's OK with other names. So I would suggest, like @AlexDaniel, to try not converting this thread in a premature search of the best name (we've have had plenty of those in the past). Let's agree (or disagree) on the principle. So if you're OK with a rename, but object to the name (of have reservation), just state your stand and add a note that you would prefer further discussion on the specific choice.

JJ commented 5 years ago

A renaming debate is fun and great. But unfortunately, we've been there. The choice of Camelia is simple: search for camelia and language already takes us to Perl 6 pages. We can also keep the logo. And it's 7 characters long, 6-ish. So while ofun and all the others have their merits, I prefer Camelia

El vie., 9 ago. 2019 9:18, Fernando Correa de Oliveira < notifications@github.com> escribió:

I like ofun

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nige123 commented 5 years ago

Honest brands are good. An honest brand means clearer communication, trust and authenticity.

The honest truth is Perl 6 is a dialect of Perl - and that's something not to be embarrassed about. I'd like to keep all those good Perlish associations (e.g., Larry, TMTOWTDI, whipupitude, expressivity, practicality etc) and retain Perl in the description of the language.

For example:

I prefer ofun as it 'runs deep' in Perl 6 history and sums up what it feels like to use the language and it's slightly irreverent towards computational complexity - this is a language for humans first and computers second.

Edit:

ofun works well in combination with Camilia the butterfly mascot. The strong sounding raku is less of a match.

ofun takes less time to type than python, ocaml or go run.

Update:

After considering some of the thoughtful comments below - I've changed my mind regarding ofun and now prefer raku.

duncand commented 5 years ago

I would be quite happy with the name "Camelia", and I like it more than most other suggestions.

For anyone saying that's too long a name, I strongly disagree. This is only 7 characters and a single word, it is extremely easy to type and to say. I think trying to get under 6 characters such as @nige123 hopes for would dismiss too many good options without any gain.

duncand commented 5 years ago

Perl 5 should just do what Java did early on when Java 1.2 was called Java 2, and so on.

Call the next major release Perl version 32, and so on.

nxadm commented 5 years ago

The honest truth is Perl 6 is a dialect of Perl

No, it isn't by any definition of dialect (or sociolect).

kentfredric commented 5 years ago

Well, if I get out my shoehorn, I could claim that the "ia" in "Camelia" is an italian collective pluralization suffix, making it a term to describe a group of camels.

There's lots of wordplay potential here, maybe somebody wants to make a machine-learning system in it, and they can call it "CamelAI", which is ... just camelia with the last 2 letters transposed.

or if "Brexit" had remained "TaxAvoidancexit", or "Bigotrentrance", or "To(r)yStory", or "ShortingThePound", or "DroolBrittania"?

Don't be daft, the point of brexit was to eschew "remaining".

The honest truth is Perl 6 is a dialect of Perl

Well, English is a dialect of Anglo Saxon, but they've diverged sufficiently that we give them their own names now because its less confusing, and even though it has that heritage, the intermingling and divergence makes them rather .... visually distinct.

But I don't have a dromedary or a bactrian in this race, so please take my thoughts on their own merits, disregard who said them.

nige123 commented 5 years ago

The honest truth is Perl 6 is a dialect of Perl

No, it isn't by any definition of dialect (or sociolect).

The Oxford definition is:

noun

1 A particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group.
‘the Lancashire dialect seemed like a foreign language’

1.1 Computing 
      A particular version of a programming language.

1.1 seems apt to me.

kentfredric commented 5 years ago

A particular version of a programming language.

Its long been determined that "Perl 6" is not really "a version" of the same language "Perl 5" is, official terminology is they're "sister languages". So maybe an analogy would be English vs German. They share common ancestry via its Saxon roots, but calling one a "version of" or "dialect of" the other is kinda nonsensical.

samcv commented 5 years ago

I will continue to use Perl 6 and Perl 5 no matter what they are called. But I think there is strength in having a unified message.

It would be very symbolic if Perl 5 announced the next release being 32, at the same time Perl 6 is now "Camelia". This is a much stronger message to the world than one language unilaterally changing their name. There is strength in showing that Perl 5 is still being developed, and strength in showing that Perl 6 is now taking flight (pun intended) as "Camelia".

kentfredric commented 5 years ago

It would be very symbolic if Perl 5 announced the next release being 32, at the same time Perl 6 is now "Camelia".

That really depends on who you talk to. To some, it would just be further evidence that there's something broken in Perl development, and that people using it are nuts.

Just like some people heaped praise at PHP for jumping right to PHP7, while others just held their face in their hands and incorporated it with their mental arsenal of "things PHP does wrong".

For many people, these repeated grasps to stay relevant are just alienating the established user base, while not materially attracting new blood.

edit: Did I mention that every time people talk about JDK, they have to work out whether to say "1.x" or "x", and sometimes they have to mention both, just to avoid confusion? It hasn't changed its versioning scheme, its just created a secondary scheme which maps to the other in effective perpetuity. And then there's projects liked "icedtea" which have yet another version scheme. It's such a mess.

nxadm commented 5 years ago

1.1 Computing A particular version of a programming language.



**1.1 seems apt to me.**

"Version" is pretty much the core of the problem we face.

Perl 6 is not the newer version of Perl 5 while the world think it is.

nige123 commented 5 years ago

That's why dialect is a good word. It does not imply any numerical supremacy as 'version' sometimes does (i.e., 5 -> 6).

I'd suggest putting all three names to the vote: camelia, raku and ofun (Larry liked this too).

JJ commented 5 years ago

El vie., 9 ago. 2019 a las 12:19, Nigel Hamilton (notifications@github.com) escribió:

That's why dialect is a good word. It does not imply any numerical supremacy as 'version' sometimes does (i.e., 5 -> 6).

I'd suggest putting all three names to the vote: camelia, raku and ofun (Larry liked this too https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/perl6?date=2018-10-25#l655).

I'm sorry, but the issue here is camelia vs !camelia. If you don't like camelia, opt for !camelia.

lizmat commented 5 years ago

I think I've said what I wanted to say in this proposal.

People have pointed out that I may have disregarded the "Raku" option in this. For the record, I have. I decided not to use that in this proposal because it is already tainted with "Perl", and in a way, getting away from the brand 'Perl' is what we're trying to achieve.

Having said that, I would also like to go on record that I will not be opposing the use of "Raku", should that be the outcome of this issue. I would be opposed opening up the naming discussion more generally yet again. In code:

my $preference = %( Camelia => 100, Raku => 0 ){$name} // -100
JJ commented 5 years ago

El vie., 9 ago. 2019 a las 13:14, Elizabeth Mattijsen (< notifications@github.com>) escribió:

I think I've said what I wanted to say in this proposal.

People have pointed out that I may have disregarded the "raku" option in this. For the record, I have. I decided not to use that in this proposal because it is already tainted with "Perl", and in a way, getting away from the brand 'Perl' is what we're trying to achieve.

Having said that, I would also like to go on record that I will not be opposing the use of "raku", should that be the outcome of this issue. I would be opposed opening up the naming discussion more generally yet again. In code:

my $preference = %( Camelia => 100, raku => 0 ){$name} // -100

Sorry, but I couldn't help but nitpick on this:

say %( Camelia => 100, raku => 0 ).Mix.roll( 10 );

(Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia Camelia

Camelia)

neilb commented 5 years ago

Perl 5 and Perl 6 have been like conjoined sisters, and being conjoined typically holds back the development of both siblings. It's (well past) time to pull them apart so they can have separate identities, while remaining related.

This will make me happy, but more than that: greatly relieved.

We may not recover from all the damage that the naming issue has done, but we'd at least be able to try.

patrickbkr commented 5 years ago

The raku alias did go public, resulting in some people starting to use the name raku (that's just what the alias announcement proposed). E. g. @nxadm's Rakudo packages contain raku, rakudo and perl6 executables. I would say the usage of the raku alias is not high enough to justify a 'we should not rename to something else, because then we have a third name out there' stance, but it should be thought about.

In every case we need to communicate clearly what happens to the raku alias, if we decide to not rename or decide to rename to something else.

domm commented 5 years ago

I think establishing a new name for Perl 6 (and maybe at the same time bumping Perl 5 to "Perl, version 32") is a good idea.

Of course (as we see in this discussion) deciding on a new name is rather hard. As we probably don't want to switch the name again, some work should go into finding this name.

IMO an ideal solution would be to decide if there should be a renaming (basically this issue), and if yes, start a process to find a good name, i.e. brainstorming; checking if the candidates are not offensive (in various languages) (and also weed out "PerlyMcPerlFace" et.al.); are easy to search, pronounce and type; collect feedback from the community and probably have a public vote (using Instant Runoff Voting, reducing the options to two or three; and finally have a commitee decide on the name (or even let the community decide on the name)

But if this process is deemed to complex or wobbly (who is allowed to vote? how can we avoid sock pupptes / bandwagon effects, ..), I'd rather switch to Camelia than do nothing.

eritain commented 5 years ago

"Camelia" is a good enough name, by which I mean it is noticeably better than the protracted nightmare of the Perl Nomenclature Wars. That, for me, is the principal issue.

Thought experiment: If the language had always been "Camelia," and all the other names had suddenly been proposed this week, what would your reaction be, on a scale from "oh sweet mercy, we're finally talking about this" to "great idea, please debate names in my lovely bikeshed, which locks from the outside and inexplicably reeks of kerosene"?

"Camelia" happens to be my favorite of the names on offer, but even if it weren't, I'd have to ask, "Is the proposed name satisfactory to a good majority of the stakeholders? Could most people get to like it eventually?"

Doesn't have to be the perfect name. Doesn't have to be beloved by a majority. Doesn't have to make the top quintile pronunciation speed in the 23 most widely used phonologies, hail Eris. No other property of a naming or aliasing proposal that I can imagine is half as valuable, IMO, as finally. getting. it. done.

I believe "Camelia" is majority acceptable, or could get there easily. I believe few other names of which we are now aware, or could soon be aware, clear that standard. I believe that "Camelia" would clear it by a wider margin in any case.

It's probably reasonable to wait a couple more days to see if anyone can propose a name competitive with "Camelia" on that criterion. Then do a round of approval voting and see if I'm right. And if I'm wrong, I'll eat crow, and we can go ahead with tuning the weights for the 42 criteria to optimize the proposals for the process of selecting the committee to brainstorm names, or whatever fresh hell. But do the simple approval vote first.

("Perl 32" is an excellent companion proposal to "Camelia" and I hope the 5 cabal will consider it seriously.)

pistacchio commented 5 years ago

Hi. I’m an outsider in the Perl6 community, but I’ve been following its development constantly for the past four or so years and I’m looking forward to use it in some personal project.

Few days ago I wrote a post on the Perl6 Facebook group suggesting some marketing actions to promote the usage of the language and I didn’t go as far as proposing the name change, but since it’s been proposed here by Liz, I salute it as a tremendous opportunity to start afresh and decide from scratch a new marketing strategy to make the programming community interested in Perl6.

Now, I think Camelia is a terrible name. The hard job to be done here is to abstract yourself from your own knowledge and sentimental investment with the language and pretend you’re the average guy on r/programming that is hearing about the language for the first.

The first question to ask is: what does the marketing of Perl6 want to communicate? What are the key “feelings” that one wants to be associated with it? Because “Camelia” is “cute” and “gentle”, especially when associated with the Camelia logo. Sadly, outside the Perl6 community, the ongoing feeling associated with Perl6 is “it’s a joke” and having as a logo a smiling, colorful butterfly that seems to have been drawn in the ‘90s by a 11 year old kid on MS Paint doesn’t help.

I strongly feel like both the name “Camelia” and the Camelia logo need to go away, because nobody wants to invest its time in something he perceives as a “joke language” and nobody would ever choose a language because it’s “gentle”.

As other pointed out, Camelia is also a too long name. Pick some of the most popular languages nowadays: C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, Ruby. Shot names, even one or two letters. If they’re too long like JavaScript they get shortened down as JS.

Also, Camelia, with the “C” and the “ML” in the name could confuse someone into thinking that’s its a language of the ML family like Ocaml.

It would be interesting to look at some survey like “What are the most sought out programming language characteristics” and let them inspire the choice of the name, but I’m pretty sure that “cutenesses” or “gentleness” are not there. People wants languages to be “fast”, “reliable”, “mature”, “safe”. Camelia doesn’t convey any of that.

On the other hand, “Raku” is a fantastic name. The shortness of the name inspires the fastness of the language. “Strong” and “R” and “K” letters inspires powerfulness in the language, in to the soft letters “M” and “L” in Camelia.

It also recalls the Japanese culture with many strong positive associations within the “nerdish” programming community thanks to manga, anime, videogames. Together with a new logo Raku logo that would strongen the association with such culture, it would recall terms like “zen” and “samurai” to promote a language that is both “wise” and “powerful”.

I don’t have my computer at hand so I can’t work on a proposal right now, but as a Raku logo, a patched grey vase with golden joints and the Raku text written with a font that recalls the Japanese writing would be great. Or such vase broken and re-joined in four parts and the four letters that make the “Raku” name in the four patches.

Another thing that I think needs to be corrected (again, by putting ourselves in the shoes of someone knowing nothing about the language”) in preparing the Perl6 site for re-launching is getting rid of any name that is not strictly the new name of the language (being Camelia, or Raku or whatever). I know that for people involved for years in the development of the language “Perl”, “Camelia”, “Raku”, “Rakudo”, “MoarVm” all make sense, but I’ve never heard of the language and I’m on the main language site, I only want to see what the language looks like at a glance, a QuickStart guide and a big “Download Camelia” or “Download Raku” button. As of now, I land on the Perl6 site and I see a “Download Rakudo” button. I know it makes sense if you already know the Perl6 language history and ecosystem, but it doesn’t make the slightest sense for any new come and it’s only a source of avoidable early confusion.

Just my two cents.

borisdaeppen commented 5 years ago

Kind of a response, from "outsider" to "outsider"

On Naming in General and Renaming of Perl6 in Particular

Liz' perl6-naming-issue has got a lot of traction on reddit and other sites.

A lot of people gave their opinion. Some mention why certain names are good and certain are not.

I feel like some important facts about the nature of things have not been mentioned yet. At least not in this new iteration on the topic. I briefly like to address some realities about naming.

Names are Dialectic

Names do have a property which some people (maybe especially 'Programmers') may not like: It isn't possible to control a name!

Why is that?

Names are dialectic in nature: meaning they engage with you as you engage with them.

If you name something, the name may influence the thing, but the thing may also influence the name! How the end result will be perceived may vary heavily in space and time, meaning locations and generations.

but also:

Also: People will perceive, use and misuse a name as they see fit! Names are part of human language and humans tend to be very creative with it. You can not foresee what will happen to a name. You can just try to avoid some obvious pitfalls.

Ethymology and Symbolics

The meaning of a name can also be drawn from its historical context or from current usage and analogies. Like 'Python' is a snake meaning X and 'Ruby' is a crystal meaning Y.

But one need to understand that this has just a very small to no importance for most people.

Nobody refers to 'Perl' as a 'Pearl', which actually is its etymological and symbolical origin. The Implementation and Community has influenced the name 'Perl' so heavily that it created it's own meaning!

Renaming of Perl6

When we talk about the name 'Perl6' we have one objective problem:

This does not make 'Perl6' a bad name per se, but it is a good reason to change the name.

Is Camelia a 'good' name for Perl6?

Again, if you 'like' it now or will in the future, is subject to past and future dialectics, which you can't control.

What we can say now:

(They same probably applies to 'Raku'. It is not an argument for or against a specific name I'm trying to make here)

Who should give a Name?

I'd say it is as with children. Those who put their effort in (parents), give the name. For Perl6, this is the developers of Perl6.

People who claim 'outsider' perspective don't 'actually' represent the outside perspective, but merely their own. And they surely can't foresee neither, how the dialectics will play out in the future.

Thanks for reading

I hope this helps taking the 'fear' of names from some of you.

original source for this text, dicussion thread

Boris, in a train, 2019-08-10

(editet for grammar and minor details, 2019-08-12)

uzluisf commented 5 years ago

NOTE: As far as I'm concerned, I'm an outsider to the Perl 6 community relative to other community members who's been involved far longer than I and in a more direct and impactful way. I understand that we humans aren't infallible and I might be missing some facts that are crystal clear to other community members (e.g., core developers). Thus, you should take the following with a grain salt.

If we must agree on something, it's that this recurrent language name issue should be stopped and I think this is the appropriate time to be done with it once and for all. It doesn't look good on the community. If we cannot even agree in the name of the language, what message does than send to people outside the community?

In the following paragraphs, I'll be pitching for Raku but even if Camelia (or other name is chosen) it'll be a win-win for the community. I understand we must always make compromises and realistically speaking, I don't think most people (including myself) in this comment section have that much of a stake in the final decision. However, I trust the people in the list added by @AlexDaniel will make the right (well, the most appropriate) decision in this particular situation.

This is probably redundant but I don't use/like Perl 6 because of its name but due to what Perl 6 is and stands for.

Kudos to Liz for this proposal which represents a great opportunity to start afresh as stated by @pistacchio.

That being said, I'm wondering why Raku isn't a viable and obvious choice for the language name. Liz provides several reasons why Camelia is the obvious choice and the following are my refutations to those reasons:

the search term "camelia programming language" already brings you to the right place.

I don't think this is a big deal because most people when looking for a programming language in a search engine probably appends some combination of the words programming and language to their searches. For instance, searching [1] for crystal doesn't bring up any relevant information as far as the Crystal programming language is concerned. However, searching for crystal programming, for example, gives you relevant results with the first one being a link to the language website. The same applies to raku. This is not the case for C, Perl 6, Ruby, Rust, etc. Searching for these names will give you relevant information about these languages, if only for the amount of time these names have been in the open and used in documentation, forums, articles, blogs, videos, etc. However, this is to expected since raku became an alias for Perl 6 a few months ago and even after then, the name hasn't been used prominently aside from few mentions on the glossary. Thus, we shouldn't expect it to be ranked first in search results as it's been barely promoted/embraced/used.

the logo / mascot would not need changing: it's just that it now also becomes the actual name of the programming language.

At first glance, Camelia (the mascot) doesn't have that much of relationship with Perl 6. Certainly, if you read about it on Wikipedia or you're greeted by it on the Perl 6 homepage, you might be begin to associate Camelia with Perl 6. However, for someone in the wild who's never heard about Perl 6, Camelia is only a cute and quirky drawing of a butterfly. Thus, I don't think the logo needs to change even if a language name, other than Camelia, is chosen. I know many people don't like the logo (I'm sad to admit it but at first, I was in that camp too) but I'll daresay Camelia is sort of an acquired taste. And if the bright colors are the problem, Zoffix created different tone-down variants of the logo. I myself created another variant with darker and softer colors and with what I consider a less squiggly and more inviting smile ;-).

"Camelia" in its name, still carries something Perlish inside of it.

I'm unfortunately missing the point on this one ("Camelia"?!). Sorry :-(!

The concept of "Camelia" being an implementation of a specification in "roast", still stands. The alternative, to use "Rakudo" as the name of the language, would cause confusion with the name being used to indicate an implementation, and would endanger the separation between specification and implementation.

I understand this but wouldn't the same apply to Raku?! And as Liz and others have indicated, I think "Rakudo" shouldn't be considered as a candidate for the name of the language. This would blur, confuse and endanger the "separation between specification and implementation", especially when new implementations hopefully come out.

Choosing yet another name, such as Albus, would mean having to start from scratch with marketing and getting the name out there. Hence my preference for a known name such as "Camelia".

To some extent the same applies to Raku. For instance, with the 6.d release announcement Zoffix created beautiful brochures which got the name out there and sprang multiple discussions. Furthermore, many people who are somehow involved with the community stated they would start using Raku (or Raku Perl 6). Thus, there was some expectation that Raku could possibly phase out the name Perl 6 in the long run "through its sheer amount of use". Anecdotally, many times I've come across some community members in Reddit (/r/programminglanguages, /r/perl6, /r/perl, /r/programming, etc.) and in HackerNews using Raku to refer to Perl 6. Thus the word is already out there that the language is also referred to as Raku.

The "Camelia" logo is still copyright Larry Wall, so it would allow Larry to still be connected to one of the programming languages that he helped get into the world.

I honestly think that even if the language was logo-less, Larry would still be connected to the language. After all, the language is infused with his spirit and wisdom all over the place. I understand where Liz is coming from but a similar argument could be pitched for Raku too. Larry didn't just choose Raku in a whim. After Zoffix's proposal, Larry went away from the keyboard and many people wondered what would happen with the request. I honestly thought nothing would come out of it. However, Larry came back to #perl6 and had a brainstorming section with other community members about the new alias. By the way, I'm willing to believe that Larry was already set on Raku. Few of the things he liked about it were: the name's short (only 4 letters), connection with Raku pottery (which is"imperfect but sophisticated"), there isn't an existing "raku" command (at least that Linux Mint he admitted. I myself never heard of Raku before) and it can be read as "rock you". @nige123 provides a few other criteria for a language name that Raku seems to meet.

All that being said, I don't know what would be the sentiment towards promoting Raku from an alias to an official name. Larry envisioned Raku as a stage name but I think that was only due to the scope of the then proposal. Thus, I don't see any problem for it being promoted as the official name of the language. Some people are already aware of it, use it alone (Raku instead of Raku Perl 6 as mentioned in the 6.d release), it doesn't carry that much linguistic baggage, it's the name for some type of beautiful Japanese pottery, it also means "enjoyment" (according to WP) which further strengthens its relationship with ofun, it commands uniqueness, reliability, etc. as emphasized by @pistacchio, etc. Therefore, what's not to like about it?!

[1] Searches were done on DuckDuckGo and Startpage. Mileage may vary.

Edit:

I'm for keeping the Camelia logo but I went ahead and created a Raku logo. Suggestions are welcome.

logo

tbrowder commented 5 years ago

I'm happy with whatever the community decides (although I like "raku" for a new name, and I would keep Camelia as the mascot/logo).

However, in all the turmoil and changes in superstructure a name change will entail, one thing that bothers me is our major investment in cpan--how will that relationship change or be handled?

melezhik commented 5 years ago

Hi! My 2 cents in this historical event.

Camelia seems pretty and beautiful as a name itself. However I find some difficulties with it's practicalness. What should we name the interpreter? Camelia seems too long to type. We need to think of better shortcuts. What should we use as a file extensions? cm, cl ? Looks good for me, though might be already reserved by other languages.

Raku looks more advantageous in the context of the mentioned points. It's way too shorter and almost without hassle could be used straight away:

raku - interpreter rk - extension

As a bottom line:

Camelia is something precious, gentle, sophisticated and a bit impractical

Raku is straightforward, direct and pragmatical if not to say rough.

Which way we go?

Name determines the future.

All opinions are mine.

Thank you.

Scimon commented 5 years ago

I am fine with renaming the language as long as we keep a solid friendly and working relationship with the Perl Foundation. As tbrowder mentions above losing the usage of CPAN would be an issue. Also if we lost the ability to fun grants because "Camelia / Raku / A.N. Other isn't Perl" then we'd lose a lot of potential for growth.

I know the naming thing annoys a lot of the hardcore Perl 5 community and by changing it we go a long way to mollifying that but I worry that some may also take it as an excuse to try and sever all ties.

(Sorry for the delay was in Scotland last week mostly incommunicado).

ab5tract commented 5 years ago

I am fine with renaming the language as long as we keep a solid friendly and working relationship with the Perl Foundation. As tbrowder mentions above losing the usage of CPAN would be an issue. Also if we lost the ability to fun grants because "Camelia / Raku / A.N. Other isn't Perl" then we'd lose a lot of potential for growth.

I know the naming thing annoys a lot of the hardcore Perl 5 community and by changing it we go a long way to mollifying that but I worry that some may also take it as an excuse to try and sever all ties.

(Sorry for the delay was in Scotland last week mostly incommunicado).

I think this is a valid consideration. In fact, it was the argument that Wendy posted that made me change my mind about supporting the Raku stage name proposal last time we went through the Name Change Carnival.

However, I think that the communities should naturally diverge and overlap only as much as occurs naturally over the course of the next few years. If the name change generates enough good will with the Perl 5 community that still hates Perl 6 to let them start to heal, then maybe they will even give the current implementation a second look.

I've talked to p5p members whose main objection to giving Perl 6 a fair chance remains the name issue. I'd like to see the look on their face if they were finally to give it a shake, but only as Raku. Somehow I am sure that they would fall in love. Wouldn't it be better to come back to sharing grant funding boards and conferences after we allow some time and space for that to happen?

As it stands, the bottom line from a language adoption perspective is that both Perl 5 and Perl 6 need to make it on their own merits in this world. I think they can both be better siblings to each other by spending some time developing themselves outside of previous unhealthy relationship patterns, even if those relationships have been previously vital for survival.

In terms of naming choice, personally I side more with the 'Raku' corner of the debate. It already has momentum, it's a Japanese word and Perl 6 has a lot of contributing modules from Japan. And what seals it for me is the Perlish-ness of "raku do" being the command-line invocation for running Raku code. I appreciate the concern about multiple implementations but considering the time it took to get the first one right, giving that too much weight is premature optimization at this point.

That said: I love that damn butterfly! No one can ever stop me from loving and using that logo. However, there is even precedence for the multi-logo lifestyle in Perl's history: the onion and the camel were both interchangeable symbols in Perl's heyday. Who wants to take a stab at a raku glazed rendition of Camelia? A silhouette on a cup, perhaps? Or maybe a ceramic rendition of a butterfly, fired with all the colors of Camelia?

pjlsergeant commented 5 years ago

I am fine with renaming the language as long as we keep a solid friendly and working relationship with the Perl Foundation @scimon

In a more corporate world, one tends to say something like “Foobar, a Megacorp company”. One might end up with “Camelia, a Perl Foundation Language” or something