I'd maybe point out in the "you can break the OS" part that while the OS may include a version that has what are now known bugs, sometimes there are features that effectively depend on those because the OS counts on the bad behavior for some reason. All the more reason to wait for the system Perl to get updated with system updates.

Another pro is that if you're trying to either test someone else's code that depends on the version, or test a claimed bug (e.g. posted at PM) it's much easier to do if you're set up to switch among Perl installs at will, and can install new ones safely and cleanly with something like Perlbrew.

It's easier to upgrade to a new Perl if you don't have to do it all at once. You can install the latest and greatest, write new code with it, etc. without worrying about breaking any of your existing code and having to spend a bunch of unplanned time fixing it. This is especially useful for "intermittent" developers like me. (FWIW, I do find that Perl tends to have very good backward compatibility and can't recall the last time I ran into a conflict, unlike Ruby, which sometimes makes me crazy with incompatible dependencies.

In reply to Re: RFC: (Do Not) Modify the System Perl by bitingduck
in thread RFC: (Do Not) Modify the System Perl by MidLifeXis

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.