=head1 NAME
-perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.12 $, $Date: 1997/04/24 22:43:34 $)
+perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.15 $, $Date: 1998/08/05 11:52:24 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
core, the standard Perl library, the optional modules, and the
documentation you're reading now were all written by volunteers. See
the personal note at the end of the README file in the perl source
-distribution for more details.
+distribution for more details. See L<perlhist> (new as of 5.005)
+for Perl's milestone releases.
In particular, the core development team (known as the Perl
Porters) are a rag-tag band of highly altruistic individuals
committed to producing better software for free than you
could hope to purchase for money. You may snoop on pending
-developments via news://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ and
+developments via news://news.perl.com/perl.porters-gw/ and
http://www.frii.com/~gnat/perl/porters/summary.html.
While the GNU project includes Perl in its distributions, there's no
You should definitely use version 5. Version 4 is old, limited, and
no longer maintained; its last patch (4.036) was in 1992. The most
-recent production release is 5.004. Further references to the Perl
+recent production release is 5.005_01. Further references to the Perl
language in this document refer to this production release unless
otherwise specified. There may be one or more official bug fixes for
-5.004 by the time you read this, and also perhaps some experimental
+5.005_01 by the time you read this, and also perhaps some experimental
versions on the way to the next release.
=head2 What are perl4 and perl5?
Over a hundred quips by Larry, from postings of his or source code,
can be found at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/misc/lwall-quotes .
-=head2 How can I convince my sysadmin/supervisor/employees to use version (5/5.004/Perl instead of some other language)?
+=head2 How can I convince my sysadmin/supervisor/employees to use version (5/5.005/Perl instead of some other language)?
If your manager or employees are wary of unsupported software, or
software which doesn't officially ship with your Operating System, you
(Well, ok, maybe not quite that distinct, but you get the idea.) If
you want support and a reasonable guarantee that what you're
developing will continue to work in the future, then you have to run
-the supported version. That probably means running the 5.004 release,
-although 5.003 isn't that bad (it's just one year and one release
+the supported version. That probably means running the 5.005 release,
+although 5.004 isn't that bad (it's just one year and one release
behind). Several important bugs were fixed from the 5.000 through
-5.002 versions, though, so try upgrading past them if possible.
+5.003 versions, though, so try upgrading past them if possible.
+
+Of particular note is the massive bughunt for buffer overflow
+problems that went into the 5.004 release. All releases prior to
+that, including perl4, are considered insecure and should be upgraded
+as soon as possible.
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
All rights reserved.
-When included as part of the Standard Version of Perl, or as part of
-its complete documentation whether printed or otherwise, this work
-may be distributed only under the terms of Perl's Artistic License.
-Any distribution of this file or derivatives thereof I<outside>
-of that package require that special arrangements be made with
-copyright holder.
-
-Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples in this file
-are hereby placed into the public domain. You are permitted and
-encouraged to use this code in your own programs for fun
-or for profit as you see fit. A simple comment in the code giving
-credit would be courteous but is not required.
+When included as an integrated part of the Standard Distribution
+of Perl or of its documentation (printed or otherwise), this works is
+covered under Perl's Artistic Licence. For separate distributions of
+all or part of this FAQ outside of that, see L<perlfaq>.
+
+Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are public
+domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
+derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you
+see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
+be courteous but is not required.
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff