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Perl 5.8.0 Released

twoshortplanks writes "The latest version of Perl has been released, with new features such as better Unicode support, a new threads implementation, new IO layer support, and a whole plethora of bundled modules - plus a wonderful collection of regression tests and new documentation. The release notes and links to mirrors for download are on dev.perl.org." This is not a release candidate, it's the real thing, representing over two years of work by patch pumpkin holder Jarkko Hietaniemi and his merry band. Hugo van der Sanden is the new pumpking for perl 5.10.

14 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Explanation of Pumpking by recursiv · · Score: 5, Informative

    patch pumpkin n. [Perl hackers] A notional token passed around among the members of a project. Possession of the patch pumpkin means one has the exclusive authority to make changes on the project's master source tree. The implicit assumption is that `pumpkin holder' status is temporary and rotates periodically among senior project members.
    This term comes from the Perl development community, but has been sighted elsewhere. It derives from a stuffed-toy pumpkin that was passed around at a development shop years ago as the access control for a shared backup-tape drive.

    --
    I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
  2. Re:Will it enforce readable code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    The fundamental point of perl is its a quick way to write one-off scripts to do quick repetitive jobs - therefore maintainable code is not necessary.
    ::Sigh:: yet another person with this misconception. Perl is not just a little language for one-off scripts. It can be used for real, big, major, mission-critical applications. It's used by Barclays Bank, the Scottish Land Registry and many more. It also powers Sweden's entire pension system. In addition, Hewlett Packard's "OpenSkies" system used by many European low-cost airlines like easyJet and RyanAir is written in Perl.

    Perl is real programming language, and as for the readability aspect: Perl doesn't hold your hand. It's perfectly possible to write clear code in Perl. If I was to show you one of my scripts I'm sure anyone with basic programming knowledge would be able to understand it.

  3. Re:Excellent! Now I have something to do at work : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm no coward, but don't want to spend time creatying an account (and remembering it) right now.

    perl-5.8.0 is now completely 11.00 and 10.20 HP C-ANSI-C and GNU gcc safe. There are more 'README' pieces about Oracle in README.hpux and DBD-Oracle's README's have been extended, and probably will be even more in the near future.

    I've already made a pa-risc-2.0 gcc version prepared for Oracle available on https://www.beepz.com/personal/merijn for HP ITRC forum members, and I cannot promise, but a 10.20-pa-risc-1.1 version is planned for the near future.

    BTW, I seldom read this forum.

  4. Re:pumpkin pumpkin whos got the pumpkin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hello,

    This is David Corbane the fink developer over at Apple.

    I just wanted to give this warning, since the post above seem to be a well constructed trolling.

    Fink is an apt-get (Debian) application for packagemanagement on Apple OS X platform. It works just like apt-get.

    The three lines given above would not solve any of the issues, rather this would launch your workpod into a highly unstable state, since perl is used extensively within OS X.

    Fink manages aplications outside the base installation of OS X and no third party package mangement should in any way bother with base OS X applications.

    If you try the above, you will not be able to run any sort of cron applications (which are run by default and most of which involve perl scripts).

    Also doing this removes some glue security bindings that are controlled by perl.

    Please be aware that fink is only used outside the base system of OS X and the first two lines of the code above are deceptive and highly dangerious.

    Please write me if you need any more info.

    dmcorbane@corp.NOSPAM.apple.com

  5. Re:Cocoa bindings... by Piers+Cawley · · Score: 4, Informative
  6. Re:Request by asobala · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, when Perl 6 is released (a while yet, I think) you'll find radical changes to the regexps. See Apocalypse 5 for more information.

  7. Re:Thread Question by ndanger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fork() is for creating a new process. The Perl 5.8.0 threads uses the threads pragma to spawn threads. But Perl doesn't share all data by default, so variables must be declared shareable via variable attributes( $variable : attribute). Artur Bergman wrote a good synopsis.

  8. Re:Time for Berl? by axxackall · · Score: 3, Informative
    Maybe it is time to dump Perl and start designing Berl = the Beautyfull Extraction and Reporting Language

    Done. It's called BRL: Beautiful Report Language

    • Beautiful: It is easy to write BRL code that is understandable and maintainable, appealing to a programmer's sense of aesthetics.
    • Report: BRL is particularly suitable for constructing output that is a mix of static and dynamic content, e.g. web pages, e-mail messages. Its greatest strength is constructing output from SQL databases, though it is useful for many other tasks.
    • Language: The full power of a general-purpose programming language is there, though you wouldn't know it from simple examples.
    It is based on Scheme, which makes the syntax extremely simple yet powerful.
    --

    Less is more !
  9. Re:Worthy upgrade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    It is definetly worth the upgrade. Some highlights from perldelta:
    • Perl's built-in sort should be about 20% faster on most lists
    • More accurate number representation
    • Lots of new modules and pragmas, including, for all C fans out there, one that implements C's switch.
    And don't forget that this release adds Windows CE or "Windows Powered" or whatever MS are calling it now as a supported platform. Mobile Perl applications AHOY!
  10. Re:Some problems are features :-) by gorilla · · Score: 3, Informative

    Autovivification on access is seen as a bad feature, and it's intended that in perl6, there will only be autovivification on write. In other words if($hash{'index'}{'index'}==2) won't autovivify, but $hash{'index'}{'index'}=2 will. This is one of the design goals behind perl6, to fix those things which need fixing, but can't in perl5 because of backwards compatibility.

  11. Re:Easy upgrade by bertilow · · Score: 5, Informative
    perl -MCPAN -e 'install J/JH/JHI/perl-5.8.0.tar.gz'

    That should probably be:

    perl -MCPAN -e 'install perl-5.8.0.tar.gz'

  12. NOT WORKING, please mod the working install up. by arnoroefs2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Which is in this thread also.

    ( perl -MCPAN -e 'install perl-5.8.0.tar.gz' )

  13. Re:ActiveState by hobbs · · Score: 4, Informative
    ActiveState Perl is still 5.6. Any ideas when it'll be updated?
    ActiveState is already working on a 5.8-based ActivePerl, but the timeframe for release is not yet set (it will be this summer).
  14. Re:Will perl ever compile? by sabat · · Score: 3, Informative


    Yes, it will -- starting with Perl 6.0. This is a complete rewrite that compiles to a bytecode called Parrot by default. You can compile Parrot bytecode into binary, or almost anything.

    --
    I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.