Re: Does 5.8.0 suck?

There are bugs in 5.8.0. There are bugs in 5.6.1. There have been bugs in any version of Perl that was released. There are even bugs that take many years to be found, or years to be fixed after they have been found.

What's important is, "will the bugs effect your system"? You can only find out by testing (you do have a test system, right? ;-)). But I would also like to point out is that running the latest release isn't a goal in itself. If you run problem free with 5.005_03, and you don't need any features from 5.8.0 (or 5.6), why upgrade? It's not that new versions of Perl are faster (they might be faster in some areas, they are slower in others, and while it will differ from environment to environment, newer versions of Perl tend to get slower overall).

Abigail

Comment on Re: Does 5.8.0 suck?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Does 5.8.0 suck? by waswas-fng (Curate) on Aug 08, 2002 at 16:12 UTC
Why upgrade unless you need a new feature found in the new version? To me the only reasons to upgrade to 5.8.0 would be the dire need of the New IO Implementation features, New Thread Implementation (stable threads?) or Better Numeric Accuracy. Or I guess to fix a bug that there is no known or acceptable workaround for in an older version... -Waswas	[reply]
Re: Does 5.8.0 suck? by crenz (Priest) on Aug 09, 2002 at 18:54 UTC
Well, one possible reason would be that you are a module author and want to test your modules against 5.8.0 before publishing them. Especially aginst a threaded 5.8.0 perl... I like the new I/O features, since I'm working a lot with Unicode these days. That made me install 5.8.0 alongside 5.6.1	[reply]
Re: Re: Does 5.8.0 suck? by bronto (Priest) on Aug 09, 2002 at 16:48 UTC
Is "I want to keep me up-to-date with the new features of Perl, or at least the ones I am interested in" a good answer to "why upgrade?" I am not a fan of the gimme-the-latest-version line: I prefer stability and my OS of choice is Debian Linux in fact, so I agree with you on the overall. But if you want to test the newest features, having a brand new Perl 5.8.0 aside of your older installations is a good choice, isn't it? Ciao! `--bronto` # Another Perl edition of a song: # The End, by The Beatles END { $you->take($love) eq $you->made($love) ; }	[reply]
Re: Does 5.8.0 suck? by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Aug 12, 2002 at 09:25 UTC
Is "I want to keep me up-to-date with the new features of Perl, or at least the ones I am interested in" a good answer to "why upgrade?" For a production system? No. (The thread is about upgrading on production systems). You might want to upgrade Perl on a development server for those reasons, but not if it's important your product has to run on older versions of Perl. Abigail	[reply]


go ahead... be a heretic
	PerlMonks