[San-Diego-pm] Perl 5.24

[Christopher Grau]

On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Bob Kleemann <rkleeman at energoncube.net> wrote:
> I also wanted everyone to be aware that Perl 5.24 has been released.  As
> with all versions of Perl, there are numerous fixes, changes, improvements,
> all of which you can see in the perldelta file:
> https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/perl/pod/perldelta.pod.  Are there any
> changes that you like or dislike?  Is there anything that you want more
> information about?

While I've installed 5.24.0 under plenv and am using it for my own
programs, I've not spent any time reviewing the perldelta document.
Nor do we yet have it installed for use at my day job.

The last new feature I've really taken advantage of is non-destructive
substitution (s///r), which was introduced way back in 5.14. It
simplifies all the long map pipelines I'm so fond of writing.

Postfix dereferencing maturing from its experimental status seems to
be the feature I've heard the most excitement about. It looks like a
nice feature for making my code easier to read, but I can't say I've
used it yet.

Looking over perldelta, I don't see anything that jumps out at me.
It's nice to see the continuing improvements, though. I've certainly
been pleased since Perl gained a regular release schedule. It feels
very mature as a project and it gives me something to reference when
those who may be less informed ask why I still consider a "dead
language" my strongest.