Good day to all! I'm about to start writing a few scripts and modules for Yet Another Project on my plate, and wanted to get some advice from others on what version of Perl they currently target (today).

Most of the modules will be OOP related, so it's a matter of use vars vs. our and #!/usr/bin/perl -w vs. use warnings for me. Most of my Perl learning started with 5.6.x installs, while my 5.00x exposure is simply due to base installs on FreeBSD/Linux servers.

On my *mumble* Windows workstation, I have ActiveState Perl v5.6.1, on one FreeBSD server I have Perl v.5.6.1, and on the live FreeBSD server I have v5.005. I'm not to keen on upgrading the live boxen to 5.6.1, since I would have to reinstall a fair amount of modules, and hence a lot of testing.

So, my questions are many fold:

  1. Assuming I stick with 5.005 on the live box, but are developing under 5.6.1 elswhere, is there a good set of docs (in addition to the perldeltas) about developing downward?

  2. Is there a list somewhere on what versions currently ship with the major operating systems?

  3. Depending on the question above, is it time to cast aside 5.005 for new development? What is the audience developing for currently? 5.00x, or 5.6.x?

I know some of this comes down to "what is your target audience", if there will even be one. But I'd hate to paint myself into a corner for no particular reason.

-=Chris

In reply to Target version: 5.00x or 5.6.x? by jk2addict

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