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Perl 7 FAQ

Perl 7 FAQ

last updated 2022-05-26

Is Perl 7 coming?

It is the current plan that this version number will be used for Perl at some point in the future.

When is Perl 7 coming?

Unclear. We (the Perl community) have to figure out what it will be first.

"The plan remains that there will be a Perl 7 bump, but not immediately after 5.34.0 is released. We want to make it “good value” - to have clearly communicable improvements. We don’t think that we can deliver on that in 12 months." - Perl Steering Council, 2021-05-06

"At some point in the future, the PSC may decide that the set of features, taken together, represent a big enough step forward to justify a new baseline for Perl. If that happens, then the version will be bumped to 7.0." - Perl Steering Council, 2022-05-26

Will Perl 7 enable strict and warnings by default?

"The way forward for Perl providing a better baseline is via the use v mechanism." - Perl Steering Council, 2021-04-11

"We want to move the language forwards more quickly than we have been, but we'll be sticking with the yearly release schedule, and every year's release should be a safe candidate for /usr/bin/perl." - Neil Bowers, 2021-05-16

This means that the current plan is not to change the defaults, but for a baseline of strict and warnings to be applied by a declaration like use 7. The use VERSION statement applies both strict and warnings starting with use v5.36.

Will Perl 7 enable signatures by default?

Certainly not; this was not even proposed and is not feasible. But as of Perl v5.36, it is no longer experimental and is being added to feature bundles.

Will Perl 7 add a core object system (Cor/Corinna)?

Unknown; the Cor project is still in the design proposal phase, though it could be added to Perl as an opt-in feature whenever it is ready, or its addition could be coordinated with a major version release.

Will Perl 7 enable/disable/add/remove X?

There are no concrete plans for any specific changes to default features. Perl has an existing standard process for adding and removing features and there are no plans to change this process.

The 7.0 feature bundle will be enabled by use 7, and its specifics have not yet been decided.

What happened to the previously announced plans for Perl 7?

Perl is developed by a relatively small group of volunteers and grantees, and many of those vital contributors either did not agree with the initial proposal as announced by then-pumpking Sawyer X, or did not find it realistic.[1][2][3][4][5][6] As such, the question of Perl governance authority was raised back in August 2020 stalling any further discussion on Perl 7, and this has been a long process shepherded by former pumpking Ricardo Signes, which has now reached a conclusion in late December 2020.

How does the new Perl governance work?

A core team of those active in Perl development elects a three-member steering council that serves a term of one stable Perl release or two years, whichever comes first. This council governs according to the new perlgov constitution document roughly based on Python's PEP 13. The current membership of this council can also be found in perlgov.

AUTHOR

Dan Book (Grinnz, CPAN DBOOK), an invested Perl community member who has written his own opinions on the matter:

  1. http://blogs.perl.org/users/grinnz/2020/07/perl-7-a-risk-benefit-analysis.html
  2. http://blogs.perl.org/users/grinnz/2020/08/perl-7-by-default.html
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