I started learning Perl back when Debian had 5.6 installed as default. This was probably in the Potato days -- 2001 or so.

Usually I sample a few systems I use, and code for the oldest one. Today Debian (stable) has 5.10.1, FreeBSD 5.12.4, and Gentoo was at 5.12.* IIRC. Therefore, I'd consider 5.10 a "safe" version.

Here's the odd thing. I still code as if I was coding for 5.6. I suspect much of my code (except perhaps the things dealing with character encodings) work fine in that version. I just don't have an installation that old to test on.

No, I haven't scoured perldelta for interesting things. I just decided that, being the conservative person I am (tech-wise), I don't actually need the features offered in 5.10. State variables can be done without a special keyword. given/when syntax feels alien to me. Smart-matching, well, it can come in handy, but I never learned to use it. Defined-or is just a shortcut. Yes, I suppose I would use those features the times they greatly enhance the clarity of the code, but the other times, I'll just keep on coding in my old ways.

All this really leaves up to question is CPAN modules. They are free to depend on a version >5.8, and my installed Perl hopefully accommodates that dependency. I haven't been bitten by that sort of thing yet.

In reply to Re: What is a really old version of Perl? by Anonymous Monk
in thread What is a really old version of Perl? by Argel

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