From: Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn@stonehenge.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:47:53 GMT
Subject: Re: Let's bump the minimum Perl version to 5.8
Message-ID: <86pqw3uuba.fsf@red.stonehenge.com>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikp0mkFHYCdgqThfoFr3VkVECDmW6qE3+DSSHaq@mail.gmail.com>

>>>>> "Ævar" == Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Ævar> Since we're not getting patches for common things that have been
Ævar> broken on 5.6 for years and bumping the requirenment to an 8 year old
Ævar> perl (5.8) instead of a 10 year old one (5.6) would make things much
Ævar> easier, including:

Ævar>  * Fixing the perl/ Makefile mess

Ævar>  * Being able to use 5.8 features

Ævar>  * Being able to honestly support the 5.8 release, 5.6 doesn't even
Ævar>    compile on modern systems without undocumented monkeypatches, and
Ævar>    few people use it so we don't get fixes for it.

Ævar> I'd like to propose dropping 5.6 support, and move to say 5.008. I can
Ævar> do the work required to add appropriate docs / use statements and
Ævar> fixes to bugs that we can't fix on 5.6.

As the token resident Perl expert, I'd be completely fine with that.
Sane choice.

It might be useful to document that by adding:

  require 5.008;

at the beginning of each file that presumes it, as you get around to
editing it.

That way, Perl won't even try to run it if it's too old.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion