I believe that simple functionality like /(.*?) regular expressions must be consistent across small upgrades. Consistent in behavior and consistent in speed. As I said, I can deal with 3.7 factor, as other optimizations balance it out in the end, but not with 500. The fact that Perl 5.8.0 got mutilated in the RedHat 9 release is however a direct consequence of its being Open Source.

The fact that it happened deteriorates Perl's image and mitigates the effort of all people taking part in developing Perl. Probably, legally speaking, whoever was involved in redistributing Perl in RedHat 9 was breaking the very license under which Perl is being offered, abusing intellectual property -- knowingly or not knowingly. Maybe I was the last person on earth who found out Perl is very messed up by default on RedHat 9, but this still makes the Perl community indirectly responsible for not catering for the needs of its developers and allowing other people to distort its intentions.

In reply to Re^2: The Deceiver by perldeveloper
in thread Why does a Perl 5.6 regex run a lot slower on Perl 5.8? by perldeveloper

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