Perl's 21st anniversary of release is next Thursday, 18 December. Perl 5 is already 14 years old. Though the language has seen many changes since 1994, it can't stand still. Perl 5.10 added many wonderful features and Perl 6 will change the landscape for programming languages, but what's the vision for Perl 5? How can the language stay relevant?

Lately, the Perl language has had less buzz surrounding it than many other languages and development environments, but Perl is still a key component on the Internet.

After two years of development by over two hundred authors and committers the Perl developers have released Perl 5.12.0, the latest version of the Perl language,

The Perl Foundation has migrated Perl 5 to the Git version control system, making it easier than ever for Perl's development team to continue to improve the language that powers many websites.

Once one of the pillars of the Internet, is Perl now fading away -- or will Perl 6 will spark a renaissance for the programming language?

"Perl 1 was released to the public by Larry Wall 20 years ago today. To celebrate, Perl5Porters have released Perl5.10, the latest stable version of Perl 5. Happy Birthday Perl! ..."

"...Perl 6 is a rewrite of the Perl language. It will feel Perly, and yet become more modern as it pulls in influences from languages like Ruby and Haskell.

Technically, Perl 6 is just a language specification, and there are at least two implementations underway..."

"It is with great pleasure that The Perl Foundation and Mozilla Foundation announce a major new Perl 6 Development Grant. The recipient of the grant is Patrick Michaud, the Perl 6 compiler pumpking and lead programmer of a Perl 6 implementation based on Parrot and on his own work on the Perl 6 compiler and grammar..."

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier.