no longer maintained; its last patch (4.036) was in 1992, long ago and
far away. Sure, it's stable, but so is anything that's dead; in fact,
perl4 had been called a dead, flea-bitten camel carcass. The most
-recent production release is 5.8.0 (although 5.005_03 and 5.6.1 are
+recent production release is 5.8.1 (although 5.005_03 and 5.6.1 are
still supported). The most cutting-edge development release is 5.9.
Further references to the Perl language in this document refer to the
production release unless otherwise specified. There may be one or
(Well, OK, maybe it's 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. As of August 2002 that means running either
-5.8.0 (released in July 2002), or one of the older releases like
+the supported version. As of October 2003 that means running either
+5.8.1 (released in September 2003), or one of the older releases like
5.6.1 (released in April 2001) or 5.005_03 (released in March 1999),
although 5.004_05 isn't that bad if you B<absolutely> need such an old
version (released in April 1999) for stability reasons.