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oldtechaa
oldtechaa

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Perl v5.36, Debian, and Ubuntu

I normally only write about the Perl Weekly Challenge/The Weekly Challenge, but today I have a couple things to say about recent Perl versions. I've been watching the videos from TPRC2023, and loving the talk by Paul Evans What's New in Perl v5.38. I like to have a minimum version in my code generally that I can rely on having all the features from. I think I previously ignored v5.36 because it wasn't in Debian yet (and I typically only use packaged Perl), but thanks to Paul's talk I've really enjoyed looking at the perldelta, where some really groundbreaking Modern Perl changes were made just in the use v5.36 syntax.

Well, now two things have happened. v5.36 is the oldest release still officially supported by the Perl team, and it's in Debian stable. This makes it a great candidate to be my new target version for most code!

Unfortunately, Ubuntu 22.04 (one of my servers) is still stuck on v5.34, and this makes me sad. 😥

In related news, the new object system in v5.38 and beyond looks pretty sweet! I'm excited. Can't wait to see what else gets implemented in the next couple versions.

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