[Bioperl-l] dependencies on perl version

[Fields, Christopher J]

Re: being held back, I agree.  I don't necessarily want to intentionally break current modules by adding modern code unless it can be demonstrated to be a decent benefit performance-wise, but I don't want to impede new additions by requiring compat with perl 5.8 (hence my suggestion of a 'use 5.01x' pragma when appropriate).

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is on perl 5.14.2: 

    http://askubuntu.com/questions/80672/what-perl-version-will-be-in-12-04-lts

BTW, I was wrong about perl 5.8 being 8 yrs old; it's almost 11 yrs old (perl 5.8.0 was released on 7/18/2002).  perl 5.8 reached end-of-life in 2008, fixes being only for security reasons.

So, I support dropping perl 5.8 support, but we should have a decent route of use for the folks stuck on old clusters.

chris

On Feb 5, 2013, at 9:32 PM, Hilmar Lapp <hlapp at drycafe.net> wrote:

> Does anyone know what Ubuntu uses? I've heard lots of other old version problems with CentOS.
> 
> 8 years is really old, and at some point I fear that weighing backwards compatibility too much just holds us back in a real detrimental way.
> 
> 	-hilmar
> 
> On Feb 5, 2013, at 9:56 PM, Florent Angly wrote:
> 
>> For what it's worth, the current stable version of Debian uses perl 5.10.1 (http://packages.debian.org/stable/perl/perl).
>> Florent
>> 
>> On 06/02/13 12:40, Leon Timmermans wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 9:56 PM, Fields, Christopher J
>>> <cjfields at illinois.edu> wrote:
>>>> Aim for 5.10.1, but be careful of smart-match.  If you do this, make sure to add a 'use 5.010' pragma at the top.
>>>> 
>>>> (for those who don't like this, please speak up.  perl 5.8 has been around almost 8 yrs, we would like to allow using new features if at all possible)
>>> I *really* hate saying it, but I fear a lot of places are still stuck
>>> on 5.8, in particular on 5.8.8 because of CentOS 5. I know my
>>> department still is and doesn't seem to be in a hurry to upgrade, and
>>> I'm pretty sure it won't be the only one (though personally I use a
>>> self-compiled 5.16).
>>> 
>>> Leon
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> 
> -- 
> ===========================================================
> : Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- hlapp at drycafe dot net :
> ===========================================================
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