# Raku (Perl 6)

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Raku (Perl 6) and 39 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Raku for its expressiveness and many nice features. Critics say the long Perl 6 development period delayed the language and hurt the Perl community.

## Why people recommend it

- Expressive, with many nice features (2 comments): "For me, expressiveness is fundamental. And perl 6 gives me that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45986581)) "It certainly has lots of nice features, too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45988325))

## What people warn about

- Decade-long development delayed the language (10 comments): "it needed them delivered in smaller chunks over the years rather than as a big decade long" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45983496)) "perl 6 was delayed and that might have hurt the language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46188747)) "The extremely wishy washy and decade long development track they put themselves on finally destroyed any notion of ever even returning to Perl." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46179482))
- Break from Perl 5 hurt community (6 comments): "The long period of time between perl 5 development stopping and perl 6/Raku being ready for production made the transition much, much rougher" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987976)) "Perl 6 did massive damage to the community mainly because it was so different that it looked like a fantasy language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175941)) "The insane lead time of Perl 6 to even get to a point of backwards incompatibility was it for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45984084))
- Years without a working implementation (2 comments): "no implementation of a language that anyone felt comfortable using for any real development" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45983845)) "developed for years without an actual implementation to keep them grounded" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46176502))
- Overpromised, poorly managed project (4 comments): "disastrously optimistic declaration about soon-to-be major uprgade to Perl 6 which in reality will take 15+ years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183328)) "It was so disappointing to watch them bike shed Perl 6 endlessly while Python was gradually taking over." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45993505)) ""PERL6 will be gloriously filled with rainbows, butterflies, will be backwards incompatible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45984299))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Raku (Perl 6)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/perl-6/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).