Learning Perl - Which version? [closed]

Question

I've been thinking about learning Perl. Should I learn Perl5 or start with Perl6?

Answer 1

Perl 5 if you want CPAN, Perl 5 if you want acceptable runtime performance, Perl 5 if you want stability and a language that's complete. Perl 6 if you want to play with the world's niftiest toy.

Of course, they're not mutually incompatible -- I write Perl 5 for pay and for most of my "serious" open-source work, and Perl 6 for fun. But I've been writing Perl for long enough that I'm comfortable enough with Perl 5 to switch gears and write Perl 6 in my spare time.

But for someone just starting out, of course you want to focus on just one language, and that language should be Perl 5 for most practical purposes. Perl 5 is not going to die anytime in the next 10 years, no matter how much success Perl 6 enjoys, and even though Perl 5 and Perl 6 are definitively different languages, still a lot of what you learn from Perl 5 will help you get started with Perl 6 if you choose to learn it in the future.

Answer 2

Here is a quote from the Perl6 webpage (emphasis is mine):

Perl 5 and Perl 6 are two languages in the Perl family, but of different lineages. If you are looking for production ready code please use Perl 5.

Perl5 is mature. Perl6 is in development.