As someone who is relatively new to perl, I think perl 6 is definitely a positive direction. It removes lots of inconsistencies, while providing a clean base for future expansion. For something like the sigils, what's more important - to know that a variable is a scalar, or that it's some kind of hash/array? The second would definitely be less confusing when learning the language. There are also definitely some good things coming out of perl 6, like this [this video]
The typing and grammar mechanism aren't common, it may influence other languages. Also, Perl managed to survive even without mainstream relevance so the community will probably keep enjoying it. ps: I found this talk pretty convincing about pragmatism [link] also: [this video]
Additional Perl 6 talk offered alongside another link.
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