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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.
good coders can write readable code in any language. bad coders cannot. So just what are you saying?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
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
Feh.
I think it's easy enough to write readable code in perl, the great thing is that you have the option of writing horribly unreadable code to do in 3 lines what it would otherwise take 10 to do.
It's been done. They are called Python and Ruby.
Frankly, Ruby has a lot of promise. I've been toying with it, and it feels like a pretty good compromize between java and perl.
Stop the brainwash
I learned perl using 5.0.0.5, or somesuch. I learned using version 2 of the Perl Book.
:) It seems it would be a useful community project if someone were to take these changes and compile them into a sorted by type document-- I.E., all grammar changes, then all regexp changes, then library functions, etc., with sample code where germane.
:)
:)
It seems to be the case that the perl language has actually evolved a bit since 5. I am continually finding out about "new" features in Perl that i were not aware were there (invariably, the only ones that make a difference to me are the extentions to the Regexp system: there seems to be a whole class of (?X) operators that are not in my copy of the perl book).
Is there anywhere that summarizes the various changes to perl since version 5? there are the perldoc perldelta documents (here is the perldelta document for 5.8.0). However, these are complete, technical changelogs, and cover everything from language changes to small inconsistency smoothings to changes to obscure library functions to bugfixes in internal perl functions. Moreover, they do an even poorer job of explaining the consequences to the coder of things like (?>) than the perldocs
Really, now that i think about it, i guess what i would like is a summary of what they've done to the regexps since version 5.0
If no such document exists, maybe someone can write one and post it on PerlMonks
- super ugly ultraman
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.
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.
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
Check out camelbones and see if that scratches your itch.
My favorite quote on Perl:
/., but can't attribute it. Sorry.
"A Perl script looks like an explosion in an ASCII factory"
I know I saw it on
I could not disagree more. I keep a copy of all interesting scripts I write. I often give them to friends or peers. In addition, I may not look at a saved script for some time in the future. Well written, documented code is key to being able to remember just what it was that you were doing and communictating these ideas effectively with others.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
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.
At Yet Another Perl Conference this year there was a book auction to raise funds for Perl development. Tons and tons of O'Reilly, Manning, and other books, and not just Perl books. It was interesting to see where the interests lay. There were plenty of wisecracks and groans for Java, Python, and PHP books. (I picked up Learning Python for $10.) Interestingly enough, there was intense interest in the Ruby books, and no wisecracks. Went for a higher than average price, I believe.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Done. It's called BRL: Beautiful Report Language
- Beautiful: It is easy to write BRL code that is understandable and maintainable, appealing to a programmer's sense of aesthetics.
- Report: BRL is particularly suitable for constructing output that is a mix of static and dynamic content, e.g. web pages, e-mail messages. Its greatest strength is constructing output from SQL databases, though it is useful for many other tasks.
- Language: The full power of a general-purpose programming language is there, though you wouldn't know it from simple examples.
It is based on Scheme, which makes the syntax extremely simple yet powerful.Less is more !
- Perl's built-in sort should be about 20% faster on most lists
- More accurate number representation
- Lots of new modules and pragmas, including, for all C fans out there, one that implements C's switch.
And don't forget that this release adds Windows CE or "Windows Powered" or whatever MS are calling it now as a supported platform. Mobile Perl applications AHOY!Autovivification on access is seen as a bad feature, and it's intended that in perl6, there will only be autovivification on write. In other words if($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.
That should probably be:
perl -MCPAN -e 'install perl-5.8.0.tar.gz'
I see people bashing Perl for it's supposed unreadability. I see people bashing Perl so they can advocate Python or Ruby. I see people making general, blanket statements about code readability, as if these opinions are always ready to burst forth, making the speaker a hit at parties.
Arguments about programming languages on this level are pointless beyond belief. It's like arguing which pop band is better than another. Who cares? It's all opinion and hearsay.
Which is in this thread also.
( perl -MCPAN -e 'install perl-5.8.0.tar.gz' )
ActiveState Perl is still 5.6. Any ideas when it'll be updated?
I run the scripts on Linux, but I do my coding on a WinAMD machine.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Silly Pudge. 5.10 is less than 5.8. Didn't you take math classes?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
First off, let me state that choice of programming language isn't a reflection of the abilities of a developer.
I've seen dedicated, talented developers produce great apps with Perl, Python and even (gasp!) pre-.NET Visual Basic. On the other hand, I've seen careless, uninterested developers produce mounds of pure, unadulterated crap with C++.
The language used has little to do with the quality of thefinal result, and has a lot more to do with the person coding with it.
The language used for a product often isn't even up to the developer. Employers and clients mandate a language as often as not, sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes for moronic reasons ("The CEO plays golf with this dude who told him that using Java is gonna save big bucks").
Let's look at three factors we can use when comparing languages: Performance, Development Effort Required, and Maintainability.
C++ is a great language in experienced and knowing hands. When well-done its performance is good but it tends to be very effort-intensive.
Perl and other very high-level languages are less effort-intensive, but they have a corresponding performance trade-off.
Java and .NET languages are somewhere between the two, though they both seem closer to C++ on the scale than they are to VHL languages.
The maintainability of a language seems weakly related to individual languages. Most of the maintainabilty qualities of a product will spring from the all-too-often overlooked Planning, Design, and Discipline of the developers that worked on it!
I'll allow that Perl can really let you shoot yourself in the foot as far as maintainablity goes, but what languages aren't like this? Especially beloved C++?
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
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.
On the contrary, if the choice was the developer's and he/she made a poor choice, that is very much a reflection of their (lack of) ability.
The language used has little to do with the quality of the final result, and has a lot more to do with the person coding with it.
Generally speaking, given the choice, a good programmer won't make a poor choice of language for a project. (We don't always have that choice, of course, but a good programmer knows the difference and will readily admit to suboptimal management constraints.)
The maintainability of a language seems weakly related to individual languages.
Most of the garbage code I see these days, both proportionally and in absolute terms, is written in Perl. I believe that this is due to design problems with the language itself, and due to the fact that the language is so popular, therefore drawing to it many unskilled programmers, and due to the compounding interaction of these two factors.
Perl was there first, and Larry Wall deserves accolades for it, IMO. These days, though, is there anyone that doesn't cringe at the thought of having another bale of newbie Perl code dumped on them to maintain?
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Huh?
No, Perl was removed becuase it has started to become very bloated, plain and simple. 5, 10 or even 20 MB could be handled, but it is starting to get a little bit bigger. Plus the language bigots had crept in too...:)
Atleast I got Perl in there, JKH and others were voting for TCL instead. (YUCK)
When I added Perl to FreeBSD 2.0 way back when, it came in very handy for things which needed to be written. In this day and age, FreeBSD has started to take more and more things out of the base installation and allow people to add them back in via a port. Which I agree with, why does a web server need Sendmail installed???
BWP