Upgrading Perl to 5.6

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

I'm on a shared server. My web host is running Perl 5.005. I just asked them if they have plans to upgrade to 5.6. If they tell me they don't have plans, what can I tell them to convince them that they should? Also, is it a big hassle for them?

$PM = "Perl Monk's";
$MCF = "Most Clueless Friar";
$nysus = $PM . $MCF;

Comment on Upgrading Perl to 5.6

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Re: Upgrading Perl to 5.6 by converter (Priest) on Jun 05, 2001 at 16:16 UTC
It's not hard to understand why the administrators of a shared server might be reluctant to upgrade to 5.6.0, especially if they are only marginally skillfull with Perl. As far as the administrators know, an upgrade could break users' scripts and unleash mayhem. With that said, there's no reason multiple versions of Perl can't be made available on the same system so that users who wish to use Perl 5.6.0, for instance, instead of the default version, could use the shebang line: `#!/usr/bin/perl560`.	[reply]

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Re: Upgrading Perl to 5.6
by converter (Priest) on Jun 05, 2001 at 16:16 UTC

It's not hard to understand why the administrators of a shared server might be reluctant to upgrade to 5.6.0, especially if they are only marginally skillfull with Perl. As far as the administrators know, an upgrade could break users' scripts and unleash mayhem.

With that said, there's no reason multiple versions of Perl can't be made available on the same system so that users who wish to use Perl 5.6.0, for instance, instead of the default version, could use the shebang line: #!/usr/bin/perl560.

[reply]