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

Here is the situation. Our DBA wants to install Perl 5.6.1 for his use with Oracle 9. I would like him to install a newer version of Perl instead. Does anyone know of a list of the changes between 5.6.1 and later versions? I don't want a list of all the technical changes between the versions. I just want sound reasons that would convince him that 5.8.3(for instance) is worth installing instead of 5.6.1. A list of reasons a DBA would want to use a more recent version is perhaps a better way to state the problem.

I did not recommend that 5.8.4 be installed because I had read somewhere that even-number versions of Perl are somewhat experimental. Is there any truth to this? Ot is it 5.9 that is experimental? Or am I completely lost? Should I recommend 5.8.4 instead of 5.8.3?

Thanks in advance for any help.

xenchu

Update: What are my reasons for wanting Perl 5.8.x? Well, fair enough. My major reason is that I want Perl re-installed on the Solaris 5.9 I am working on. In my (non-systems) opinion the current install was badly done. For instance, the re module did not work when I tried to use it. I suspect there might be other problems I haven't run into. If there are such problems, I am not interested in finding them the hard way.

Further, this version of Perl was installed with only the basic modules that come with Perl. The sysadmin only has the privilege to install others. He is not going to do that very willingly. With a new install I might be able to beg some more modules at the same time.

Getting to the perldocs is a hassle. I had to put aliases in my profile to access them. I am hardly an expert Perl programmer, but I don't trust this version and I don't want to worry about using it. If the DBA gets Perl 5.8.x installed then my chances of getting it installed as well goes up. Admittedly I also like using the latest greatest, but if I thought I could talk a sysadmin into re-installing Perl 5.6.1 I'd settle for that.

Finally, if they go to the trouble of installing Perl again I am hoping I can talk them into installing vim. I think it is a great improvement over vi. And I don't want to use Emacs.

That's about all there is to it, except for everything else. -<b>Programming Perl</b> (p.346)

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Re: Perl Version Differences
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on May 14, 2004 at 13:33 UTC
    There is a perldelta included in every recent perl release (since at least 5.004) summing up the differences with the previous versions.

    However, the fact that you have to ask here for reasons seems to be you don't have a cause. Either you have a reason for installing 5.8.3 over 5.6.1 (and then you don't need to ask here), or you don't, in which case it doesn't matter if 5.6.1 gets installed.

    I did not recommend that 5.8.4 be installed because I had read somewhere that even-number versions of Perl are somewhat experimental.
    That's odd major numbers (the second number). That is, the second number. 5.7.x are development releases, and so are 5.9.x. 5.6.x and 5.8.x are stable releases.

    Abigail

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      There is a perldelta included in every recent perl release (since at least 5.004) summing up the differences with the previous versions.

      Some perldelta pages are available on perldoc.com so you don't have to get all Perl versions to get all the perldelta.

      However, the fact that you have to ask here for reasons seems to be you don't have a cause.

      It looks to me that he has a cause but thinks he needs further technical backing up for it.

      Cheers, Sören

[reply]
        pages are available on perldoc.com so you don't have to get all Perl versions to get all the perldelta

        You don't have to anyway. All the old perldeltas are included with your version of perl. E.g. to get the delta that came with 5.6.1, run perldoc perl561delta

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[d/l]
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Re: Perl Version Differences
by Joost (Canon) on May 14, 2004 at 13:32 UTC
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