Some random predictions for Perl in 2002:
- Parrot will stabilize and continue to grow, supporting at least one relatively full-featured language (and cross-language library development)
- Parrot Scheme will start, albeit fitfully (a Parrot-hosted implementation of Scheme)
- Scheme Parrot will start as a weekend hack, and fail to proceed much further (a Scheme implementation the Parrot VM)
- Perl 5.8.x will be released at some point, with the most significant acceptance test coverage and platform support to date for Perl or any other "dynamic language"
- Parse::Perl will begin to appear
- Lots of work will be done with debuggers, source filters
and code analysis tools for Perl
- The Pod processing model will become SAX, and the standard Pod converters will be rewritten to take advantage of the new clarity of the Pod spec and the processing model
- Perl will be among the first implementation languages for a new standard XML Push API
In all fairness, some of these are completely obvious. The only reason why I list them here is that I've been talking to some Perl people in London (and Oxford) recently. It seems like 2002 and 2003 will finally see the realization of some ideas that have been floating around for a while.
For example, gnat has mentioned on occasion that Perl needs to be so incredibly useful for any programmer, that they will be lagging behind if they don't use Perl or tools written in Perl. One keystone here is with code analysis tools -- debuggers, pretty printers, profilers, refactoring browsers, etc. The twist is that we need these tools in Perl for Perl developers, but once they're done, we also need them for other languages -- PHP, Python, C, Java, etc.
We're getting closer every week on this particular front...
