There is a real issue in breaking existing programs. The perl5 porters weigh heavily in backward compatibility. You don't want all your existing scripts to die because one of the new features makes your existing code die. E.g. let me assume you have a functuntion called say, not entirely unlikely. By declaring to use the new features the current perl offers you, you now have to think everytime you see that funtion if that is the sub from you or the one that is enabled by your request to get all new and shiny whatever.

For short scripts, one-liners and scripts that only use core-stuff and very basic things, it might not matter, but then you'd already be happy with just stating the obvious use strict;. It is a choice the porters made: enabling new shiny features in a rather easy way contra breaking existing code by just enabling new syntax.

An additional opportunity is now handed to you to test your code without breaking it. Testing is good. I've been in QA quite a while now, and I must say that perl is one of the few languages where testing is one of the first subjects mentioned when they say where a language is good in. Funny I never hear that for python, and I hear people praise junit, but not using it as much as they should for java.

Personally I resent some "features" being enable by default in even low-level languages like C. GNU started enabling // comments long before C99 made this a standard. Any idea how many programs now cannot be compiled on machines that have VERY EXPENSIVE ANSI-C compilers that comply to C89? That causes hate and grief. I'm glad not to see that in perl, and if shit like that happens, I get an opportunity to turn it off (most of the time) and I get warned well in advance that a change will happen.


Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

In reply to Re^3: Make $^V and "my" implicit by Tux
in thread Make $^V and "my" implicit by gunzip

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