Re: [RANT] Should we try to keep compatibility with old perl5s?

On Sat, 11 Aug 2018, Shlomi Fish wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> This post is a little flamebait, so please try to keep the discussion civil.
>
> Anyway, after reading the discussion in this public github issue, and following
> some of the links (especially
> https://szabgab.com/what-does--if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it--really-mean.html ),
> do you think I was being unreasonable, or should I as a CPAN
> author/maintainer/adopter accommodate for people running old perl5s, in my case
> 5.10.x and below:
>
> https://github.com/shlomif/perl-XML-SemanticDiff/issues/3
>
> This reminds me of what chromatic wrote here -
> https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2008/09/msg140206.html :
>
> ?
> This is why we can't have nice things.
> ?
>
> Any comments or opinions? I think I'll relax by watching a nice and fun video.

I think this begs a question: how many developers are actually testing
with those older versions?  From a purely pragmatic perspective I'd think
devs should only officially support down to revs they're actively
testing, but at the same time staying cognizant of the oldest perl revs
shipped as part of non-EOL'd Unices, etc.

Personally, I'm still supporting 5.008003, but I occasionally consider
whether newer syntactic sugars might be worth a jump.  I have to admit I
quite supporting 5.006005 just because it was getting tedious having to
maintain my own patches just to compile and install it.

Ideally, whatever your choice, a dev shipping code for the benefit of the
community shouldn't be badgered for not wanting to take on the extra
maintenance efforts.  At the same time, said dev shouldn't be surprised if
wider use of the same contributions are limited until the broader community
catches up.

Do what you want, dude.  We might not all make the same decisions, but we
all get it.

 	--Arthur Corliss
 	  Live Free or Die