Thank you for your kind words. I was trying to help.

As far as Perl versions goes, it is possible to install your own version of Perl even if the system default version is 5.8. I do believe that a system Perl 5.8 is still common. Perl has become part of the unix "biosphere" and is assumed to be there for the O/S to do its job. I can understand why coding to 5.8 makes sense for programs needed by the O/S. Tackling the problem of "user versions of Perl" requires another thread.

Perl 5 is like an evolving biological organism. It morphs and adapts. However, not every new gizmo that shows up in the latest release of Perl version is worthy of use in production code. I played with the "smart match" operator and decided that it was too smart for me - I couldn't be sure exactly what it was going to do. Maybe the ambiguities of that operator have been worked out or not? In any event, I can write a lot of code without needing it.

Some new Perl features like the "//" operator make a lot of sense because it is so clearly different than the "||" operator. I find some features like: say "xyz"; to be goofy and completely unnecessary. Perl is not Python.

Hang in there, Perl is a great language.