The venerable — and popular — open source language Perl is at something of a crossroads. While its 5.x branch continues seeing new features, most recently in the new update to 5.12, work continues apace on the Perl 6 release.
Yet that’s not deterring Perl’s backers from squeezing every last bit of value out of Perl 5, which first debuted in 1994.
Developer.com takes a look at the new features, improvements and fixes being delivered in Perl 5.12 while also eying what’s to come as efforts continues to shift toward delivery of Perl 6.
Perl is getting an update this week that will advance the open source development language with new capabilities.
The new Perl 5.12 release comes at an interesting juncture for the Perl community as new user growth may be slowing down while development continues on Perl 6. The Perl dynamic language has been around since 1987, and Perl 5.0 appeared in 1994.
Longevity is hallmark of Perl development, a feature that’s reinforced with a fix in Perl 5.12. In addition, support is being added for pluggable keywords, which could help to improve Perl developer efficiency.