Perl 6.0 Might Finally Be Released This Year

It was revealed this weekend at FOSDEM in Brussels that the plan is to hopefully release Perl 6.0 by this Christmas.

Larry Wall is hoping to finally see the Perl 6.0 release out this year, with version 1.0 of Perl 6.0 by Christmas. It's not yet certain Perl 6.0 will make it out this year but that's the goal.

Perl 6 has been in development since 2000 as a big update over Perl 5. Perl 6 seeks to significantly improve the programming language and will break compatibility with Perl 5 though a compatibility mode is expected. Going back a while now have been multiple Perl 6 implementations albeit none complete; a basic overview of Perl 6 can be found via Wikipedia.

Confirmation of the Perl 6.0 plans by Christmas was posted to the Perl blog following Larry's talk at the Free Open-Source Developers' European Meeting.