To echo mirod's comments - I've worked in several Perl shops. I've also worked on several Perl versions. I started with Perl right after Perl5 was released, some 7+ years ago. I was on Perl 5.003 (or something like that). I've worked with 5.004, 5.005, and 5.6.1. Right now, I'm working with 5.004. The group I'm with wants to upgrade, but cannot because that would require too many resources for recompiling all the modules in use.

But, the app is still being developed and, other than a few neat things (like our and 3-arg open and better Unicode support), it's just like Perl 5.8. (Oh, and bugfixes and speed enhancements and ...)

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.