What's the push to require the latest Perl?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Dec 30, 2017, at 20:27, Bill Cole wrote:

> On 15 Dec 2017, at 18:00 (-0500), Bill Cole wrote:
> 
>> In regards to https://trac.macports.org/ticket/55208 :
> [...]
>> Why would help2man demand the absolute latest Perl? Well, because the Portfile says it does. However, in the real world, help2man is happy with any perl since 5.8.
>> 
>> Doing a 'port -y upgrade outdated' reveals that multiple ports are threatening to demand perl5.26 if I try to upgrade them, like whois!? Because it needs perl to build???
>> 
>> This is insanity.
> 
> Well, I've managed to find an answer, after a fashion. It's pursuant to https://trac.macports.org/ticket/50512 which seems to indicate a consensus among those who were paying attention that fewer versions is better, with some people on the side of One True Perl and others suggesting alignment with the upstream policy of maintaining 2 major versions. It seems like both approaches are being followed, with some ports retaining the option of using 5.24 or 5.26 and others going to 5.26-only.
> 
> If anyone involved in making MacPorts policy can explain this coherently, I'd greatly appreciate it.

What other explanation would you like?

Now that perl5.26 is stable, we would like all ports that require a specific version of perl (e.g. because they require perl modules) to require perl5.26.