[PLUG] Version creep and patching...

[Ian Burrell]

On 10/15/06, Unknown <plug_0 at robinson-west.com> wrote:
> What are the major problems being found in perl that perl 5.008
> is not very compatible with perl 5.8.0?  Isn't a newer version of
> a program generally supposed to be compatible with older versions?
>

Perl 5.008 and 5.8.0 are the same version.  The older way of
representing Perl version numbers is as a floating point number.  So
5.8.8 is 5.008008.

Fedora is not the best distribution is you want compatibility and
stability.  They have been aggressive in introducing new technologies
and in deprecating old ones.  For example, FC5 provides glibc 2.4
which removes the old LinuxThreads support.    Fedora tends to
introduce new versions of packages instead of backporting fixes.  RHEL
is much better about providing compatibility packages and they
backport fixes instead of releasing new updates.    Backporting fixes
and providing compatibility is a lot of work which is why Redhat
charges for their support.

 - Ian