Dropping 5.5.x

[Michael G Schwern]

David Golden wrote:
> Back on-side the argument -- if a major security bug were found going
> all the way back to 5.6.2, would there be a 5.6.3?  If so, then I
> would argue not to drop support for 5.6.  If not -- if the answer is
> "tough, upgrade to 5.8.10 or 5.10.1 for the fix" then I think that 5.6
> could be considered end-of-life.

This seems to assume that every maint release involves a comprehensive core
module upgrade.  They do not.  The coming release of 5.005_05, for example, is
still shipping MakeMaker 5.17.  If there was a 5.6.3 it would likely do the same.

I believe Nick already pointed out that a 5.6.3 would likely just to make it
build again with new versions of tools, if some maniac decided that was important.

You're right that TH dropping 5.6 will ripple through CPAN and it should be
done with some care.  However, just looking at it as "what benefits do we get"
is the wrong way to look at it.  It's like asking "how will doing this
refactoring save me time right now?"  "When will I reuse this code I'm putting
in a subroutine?"  It's hard to enumerate them, but you know it's generally a
good idea.  It's not the sort of thing you need immediately, but somewhere
down the road when you're working you think "gosh, I could use a subroutine to
do X" or "damn, I can't use that because we need to support 5.6".

The code is distorted to support 5.5.  Once we release the restrictions it
will take a while before it starts to unwind itself.  Like a kitten growing in
a bottle, even if you remove the bottle its not quite going to be itself for a
while. [1]

Anyhow, we need some data.  I propose that we get some.  Put a simple bit of
code into the Makefile.PL that says "I see you're using 5.6.x.  We're
considering dropping support because we don't think there's any real 5.6 users
left out there.  If you use 5.6 in production, please follow this URL:
http://survey.schwern.org/perl_version?perl_version=5.6.x;module=Test::Harness"

Put a beep and a sleep after it and only show it to 5.6 users so that it has a
chance of being noticed in all the normal build noise.  Using a simple URL
instead of an email makes it dead simple for someone to respond to the poll,
they don't even need to formulate an email.


[1]  http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/gray.html


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