# Raku 32 Hacker News commenters recommended Raku and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Recommended for expressive syntax, built-in grammars and a well-designed multi-paradigm language suited to parsers and scripts. Common caveat: unfamiliar, symbol-heavy syntax and a long, fragmented history. ## Why people recommend it - Built-in grammars and regexes (6 comments): "Raku is ideal for these aspects (esp with built in Grammars and general kitchen sink repartee)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48101606)) "Raku has built in Grammars so it is a great place to do early iteration of your parser" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45935646)) "Perl6/Raku has built in grammers that can do that idiomatically." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48115050)) - Expressive, intent-revealing syntax (5 comments): "fortunately Raku got enough stackoverflow and rosettacode content that it made the cut to be usable on LLMs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597565)) "Feels very expressive, like it will support any harebrained scheme you come up with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597639)) "it really helps code to be written in an expressive way to better convey the intent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860500)) - Good for DSLs and scripts (4 comments): "Since Raku suports both OO and Functional coding styles, and has built in Grammars, it is very nice for DSLs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47376487)) "Raku and Racket are language oriented novel programming languages. They may adapt more easy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49737740)) "intentionally designed as a braid of sub languages (slangs) for quoting, regex, PEG, etc" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46526125)) - Well-designed, multi-paradigm language (4 comments): "it's a wonderful reimagining of all the great things of perl from all the community RFPs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344764)) "it's actually a pretty well-designed language, and supports multimethods and overloading" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48753558)) "designed to make common cases relatively easy to code and avoid pitfalls" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49836932)) ## What people warn about - Unfamiliar, symbol-heavy syntax (4 comments): "I have looked at Raku before but I find the syntax very foreign" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46616672)) "has a lot of new magic symbology and lost what i thought was an intuitive way of regular expressions in Perl 5" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46181751)) "I reject Raku out-of-hand simply since IMO the type should follow the variable name." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529302)) - Slow development and fragmented ecosystem (4 comments): "the Perl community also got tired of waiting such a long time for what is now Raku" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938984)) "waiting for Raku (formerly perl6) to be built was like watching paint dry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46528159)) "It pulled away folks who would otherwise have spent time improving Perl 5" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980751)) - Dysfunctional, niche community reputation (3 comments): "being a hobby for a small number of true weirdos is the only way they could hope to fit into 2026" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596646)) "Second-system effect poster boy. Sensationally dysfunctional community." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46153596)) ""I'm a Raku developer" makes one sound like someone with poor hygiene" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49870033)) - Weak project management and direction (2 comments): "It really gave me the perception that they were rudderless and that Perl probably had no future." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980978)) "Larry (and the team) were much better at language design than project management." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596955)) ## 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", https://hackerapproved.com/p/raku/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).