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

I was kind of hoping so. Currently, Debian is stuck at Perl 5.10.1. I'd love to see a newer version compiled/debbed and submitted. A lot of linux distros rely on Debian, so it would get spread around pretty quick.

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Re: Anyone a Debian dev?
by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 22, 2011 at 07:50 UTC

    Debian values stability over the bleeding edge. I value that too for a server OS, which is why I use it.

    For a developer, this is usually inconvenient, because just the tool that the developer uses needs to be the latest of the greatest.

    I really do recommend that for a real application, you don't rely on the system Perl, because the system Perl belongs to the system and should only be managed through the system package manager, not through CPAN. It is not hard to have your own, or an application-specific Perl, by using local::lib and/or App::perlbrew. The first module allows you to install your modules using the system Perl but not polluting your system tools (that rely on Perl) with the new modules. The second one allows you to conveniently build (and switch) Perl versions as a normal user.

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      Perlbrew is pretty sweet! Thanks!
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Re: Anyone a Debian dev?
by Sherm (Sexton) on Feb 22, 2011 at 06:06 UTC
    The upgrade process appears to be underway already. In the experimental distribution, the perl-base package is current, at 5.12.3. Given the number of packages that depend on Perl, I suspect there's going to be a lot of regression testing of all those other packages against the newer Perl version before that package gets promoted to unstable, then testing, and finally to the stable distribution.
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Re: Anyone a Debian dev?
by hsinclai (Deacon) on Feb 22, 2011 at 03:00 UTC
    I just switched all my workstations from Dead Rat to fc14, in the process getting rid of 2 albatrosses (albatri ?): old Perls, and Debian2Centos Fanboy detractors.

    Ok just kidding on #2 but, for all the dissing that Perl gets from the PHP and Ruby communities out there (completely unmerited have you ever seen a job requirement that doesn't mention Perl), it's a pleasure to have a late version of Perl on a cutting edge distro. 

    Fedora release 14 (Laughlin)
This is perl 5, version 12, subversion 2 (v5.12.2)

    [download]
    What version were you desiring?
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[d/l]
Re: Anyone a Debian dev?
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 22, 2011 at 01:47 UTC
    Ha ha, wishful thinking :)
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