Lollie has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

We have an antique version of Perl, 5.6.1, and we are migrating to 5.8.8 (finally...) Last year IBM told our management that the newer release of Perl has fixed 'many' memory leaks and as we are seriousily prone to memory problems on our systems, mgmt has asked me to track down what has been fixed.

Can I talk someone into giving me an overview of what important upgrades have been made that affect memory usage? Or re-direct me to a website? There are like a dozen releases between 5.6.1 and 5.8.8. I don't even write code, I'm just running the conversion project (I'm an MQ wonk) so some of what I have been reading goes right over my head. I did read some upgrades about array handling, etc but I don't know what's important. I don't need to cite specific fixes, just general stuff like "array handling has been improved"

Please re-direct if I'm in the wrong place.

Thanks! L.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Old Perl vs New Perl
by JavaFan (Canon) on Aug 26, 2009 at 00:23 UTC
    Why upgrade to 5.8.8? First of all, the newest and shiniest release in the 5.8.x series is 5.8.9. But if you're doing major upgrade, why not skip 5.8.x and jump straight to 5.10.1? 5.10.x is actively maintained, while p5p has announced it hopes 5.8.9 will be final 5.8.x release. (In other words, if you find a bug in the perl you're using, it's more likely it gets fixed in 5.10.x than in 5.8.x).
[reply]

      I didn't know there was a 10 until I started researching the release levels. My developers consider 5.8.8 bleeding edge, and for them it is, trust me.

      One of my ops types suggested I just look at the release notes for 5.8 as that would have the most information, I'll try that.

      Thanks! Much appreciated. L.

[reply]

        You should not care if something is bleeding edge, you should care if something is supported. 5.10 is supported and does everything that 5.8 does. I have had segment faults in 5.8 and I had to upgrade to 5.10 address those issues. If more bugs are found I trust they will be fixed in 5.10, 5.8 you take your chances.

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Re: Old Perl vs New Perl
by biohisham (Priest) on Aug 26, 2009 at 01:10 UTC
    check http://www.perl.org/ there is a link on Perl Core Development, I hope you would get a structured and informative view of many different features for the different releases and versions of Perl out there.

    Excellence is an Endeavor of Persistence. Chance Favors a Prepared Mind.
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[d/l]
Re: Old Perl vs New Perl
by ww (Archbishop) on Aug 25, 2009 at 22:51 UTC
    Each release has a delta, enumerating the changes.
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