[Koha-devel] Perl version requirement
Julian Maurice
julian.maurice at biblibre.com
Fri Jun 26 12:30:06 CEST 2020
I added the topic to next dev meeting agenda
https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Development_IRC_meeting_1_July_2020
Le 26/06/2020 à 02:43, dcook at prosentient.com.au a écrit :
> Yeah, I remember when we used to use them, but then removed them due
> them changing so much.
>
> Ahh. That does sound pretty well thought out then. Yeah, let’s up it to
> 5.14, as we definitely require it for
> Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm, and no one should be
> running a Linux system with < 5.14 these days. Anyone running RHEL 6
> should really be upgrading.
>
> Oh, I do a Reply All that includes the author of the previous message.
> Personally, I filter koha-devel, so if someone replies directly to me, I
> see it before I check my filtered koha-devel folder. I figure other
> people do the same so I do the same.
>
> David Cook
>
> Systems Librarian
>
> Prosentient Systems
>
> 72/330 Wattle St
>
> Ultimo, NSW 2007
>
> Australia
>
> Office: 02 9212 0899
>
> Online: 02 8005 0595
>
> *From:*Koha-devel <koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org> *On
> Behalf Of *Tomas Cohen Arazi
> *Sent:* Friday, 26 June 2020 10:06 AM
> *To:* koha-devel <koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Koha-devel] Perl version requirement
>
> Smart matches where used a while back but marked as experimental and we
> removed their only uses.
>
> 5.10 was required for defined-or, and Julian suggests we need 5.14
> because of the use of /r.
>
> PS is it me or the reply-to on this list puts the author of the previous
> message? It should be the list itself.
>
> El jue., 25 de junio de 2020 20:31, <dcook at prosentient.com.au
> <mailto:dcook at prosentient.com.au>> escribió:
>
> Those are good points. Personally, I’d like us to specify the Perl
> version minimum based on actual usage as well. I just wonder how
> best we determine what the minimum version should be (why 5.14?) and
> where we specify that.
>
> Should we be using “use 5.14.0” in plack.psgi for instance*? Or are
> we just thinking about specifying the minimum in terms of the Debian
> packages?
>
> I wonder if there is a reliable list of features by Perl version
> without reading through every delta listed at
> https://perldoc.perl.org/index-history.html. There is something at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_5_version_history.
>
> Looking at “Non-destructive substitution (s///r)”, I see that’s only
> used 2 (obvious) times and it’s in
> Koha/SearchEngine/Elasticsearch/QueryBuilder.pm.
>
> That said, that Wikipedia list doesn’t include the nuances of the
> smart match operator, so it doesn’t seem very comprehensive.
>
> I know Martin is interested in subroutine signatures but they look
> experimental even in 5.30.0 according to
> https://perldoc.perl.org/perlsub.html#Signatures.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> *https://perldoc.perl.org/functions/use.html
>
> David Cook
>
> Systems Librarian
>
> Prosentient Systems
>
> 72/330 Wattle St
>
> Ultimo, NSW 2007
>
> Australia
>
> Office: 02 9212 0899
>
> Online: 02 8005 0595
>
> *From:*Tomas Cohen Arazi <tomascohen at gmail.com
> <mailto:tomascohen at gmail.com>>
> *Sent:* Friday, 26 June 2020 12:02 AM
> *To:* Kyle Hall <kyle.m.hall at gmail.com <mailto:kyle.m.hall at gmail.com>>
> *Cc:* David Cook <dcook at prosentient.com.au
> <mailto:dcook at prosentient.com.au>>; Koha Devel
> <koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
> <mailto:koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>>
> *Subject:* Re: [Koha-devel] Perl version requirement
>
> I agree with Martin we should be requiring newer versions when we
> need them to (say) get better code or results.
>
> And we should be consistent. Right now the minimum should be 5.14
> and we are not making it clear to the users.
>
> External library dependencies might be another reason to shift Perl
> versions. So all of that is in the mix. And we try to be
> conservative about this, specially when we pick external libraries
> and QA should consider this.
>
> El jue., 25 jun. 2020 a las 10:55, Kyle Hall (<kyle.m.hall at gmail.com
> <mailto:kyle.m.hall at gmail.com>>) escribió:
>
> I doubt we will need to worry about Perl 7 until it's available
> in Debian. It's essentially 5.32 with some better defaults ( no
> need to 'use strict' for example ). There will also be a
> migration path from Perl 5 to Perl 7 ( but not from Perl 5 to
> Perl 8 ). Perl 5 is expected to have about 10 years of continued
> support.
>
> ---
>
> http://www.kylehall.info
> ByWater Solutions ( http://bywatersolutions.com )
> Meadville Public Library ( http://www.meadvillelibrary.org )
> Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )
>
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 12:21 AM <dcook at prosentient.com.au
> <mailto:dcook at prosentient.com.au>> wrote:
>
> Just to add more fuel to the fire, have people heard about
> Perl 7? It was just announced yesterday.
>
> Unlike Perl 6 (now known as Raku), Perl 7 appears to be an
> actual backwards compatible successor to Perl 5:
> https://www.perl.com/article/announcing-perl-7/. If you
> don't want to read the link, "the bottom line" is "Perl 7 is
> v5.32 with different settings. Your code should work if it’s
> not a mess. Expect a user release within a year."
>
> --
>
> As for Perl 5.x versions, in the past, I've said let's stay
> at 5.10 because of RHEL 6, but RHEL 6 is being retired
> November 30, 2020 (with an "Extended Life Cycle Support
> Add-On" available until June 30, 2024). I really don't think
> we should be hamstrung by RHEL 6 anymore. RHEL 7 comes with
> 5.16 and RHEL 7's "Software Collections" can be used with
> Perl 5.20 and Perl 5.24, although I don't think that the
> RHEL 7 "Software Collections" can be used with the
> #!/usr/bin/perl shebang (which would be used in CGI and
> Plack's CGI emulation). That said, RHEL 8 is available now
> and it comes with Perl 5.26.
>
> Maybe we should just focus on Perl versions for supported
> Debian/Ubuntu OSes, and if people want to use other OSes,
> then they just need to upgrade to a newer version that
> supports a newer Perl.
>
> I think you can install Docker on RHEL 7, so that's another
> consideration for people running Koha on non-Debian/Ubuntu
> OSes. They can always just look at implementing a
> container-based solution, which leverages Debian/Ubuntu as
> the container OS.
>
> So yeah... let's pick the lowest Perl on our supported
> Debian/Ubuntu and have that be the minimum supported Perl.
>
> David Cook
> Systems Librarian
> Prosentient Systems
> 72/330 Wattle St
> Ultimo, NSW 2007
> Australia
>
> Office: 02 9212 0899
> Online: 02 8005 0595
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koha-devel
> <koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org
> <mailto:koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org>> On
> Behalf Of Paul A
> Sent: Thursday, 25 June 2020 9:00 AM
> To: koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
> <mailto:koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
> Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Perl version requirement
>
> On 2020-06-24 1:15 p.m., Julian Maurice wrote:
> > Ah yes, I forgot about Xenial.
> >
> > Not sure if it is still supported.
>
> Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus) was released February 28,
> 2019, has an "End of Standard Support" set at April 2021,
> and "End of Life" of April
> 2024 -- where some package enhancements are ensured up to
> the first of those dates, and *security* is ensured until
> the second, i.e nearly another four years from now.
>
> I obviously cannot speak for more than the organizations
> with which I am involved, but basically we are all keeping
> c++, php and perl based code on 16.04 LTS using Apache, and
> have moved only python coding to 18.04.
> However, we do use Nginx on 18.04 as a front end, proxying
> to the 16.04 back ends. We are beginning to look at 20.04,
> but first impressions of the transition are slightly painful.
>
> As Mark mentions below, Xenial uses Perl 5.22.1-9ubuntu0.6.
> I understand that the "1-9ubuntu0.6" denotes some fifty
> patches and fixes on top of "basic 5.22" but not amounting
> to 5.24. Just for completeness, 18.04 uses perl 5.26, and
> 20.04 comes with perl 5.30. However, from what I have
> heard, the perl 5 branch has very few deprecated, let alone
> removed, details, so backwards compatibility is on a fairly
> firm footing. In fact, a quick look at 5.22 and 5.26 show
> very much the same patches, but of course this may not apply
> to non-core modules.
>
> Best -- Paul
>
>
>
> The thing is, depending on where you
> > look, you find different informations:
> >
> > In the latest release notes:
> >
> > - 20.05.01 says that the recommended environments are
> Debian stretch,
> > Debian buster or Ubuntu bionic, and requires Perl 5.10
> > - 19.11.07 says that the recommended environments are
> Debian jessie,
> > Debian stretch, Debian buster or Ubuntu bionic and
> requires Perl 5.10
> > - 19.05.12 says the the recommended environements are
> Debian stretch
> > or Ubuntu bionic, and requires Perl 5.24 (it's strange
> that an older
> > version of Koha require a newer version of Perl)
> >
> > On Jenkins, there is a "supported" tab that includes
> Ubuntu xenial,
> > bionic and focal, and Debian jessie, stretch and buster.
> >
> > So it is not very clear.
> > Maybe we can include that information in Koha's source
> (in README ?)
> > and make it the "single source of truth" ?
> >
> > Le 24/06/2020 à 18:40, Mark Tompsett a écrit :
> >> Greetings,
> >>
> >> I apologize if this is a dumb question, but do we
> support Xenial
> >> (Ubuntu 16.04) still? If so, then Julian Maurice's
> suggestion is a
> >> little over. Xenial has Perl 5.22 in it. If we don't
> support Xenial,
> >> then +1 for his suggestion of 5.24 as the Perl version
> to use.
> >>
> >> GPML,
> >> Mark Tompsett
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Koha-devel mailing list
> >> Koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
> <mailto:Koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org>
> >>
> https://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
> >> website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git :
> >> http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs :
> http://bugs.koha-community.org/
> >>
> >
>
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>
> --
>
> Tomás Cohen Arazi
>
> Theke Solutions (http://theke.io <http://theke.io/>)
> ✆+54 9351 3513384
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>
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--
Julian Maurice
BibLibre
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