risks in upgrading Perl ?

[collins]

On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 11:16, Net Llama! wrote:
> On 12/07/03 09:54, collins wrote:
> > On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 09:10, Net Llama! wrote:
> > 
> >>I have a box that currently has perl-5.6.0 installed.  Is there any risk 
> >>in upgrading it to 5.6.1 or 5.8.0?  I have this vague memory of the 
> >>possibility of breakage.
> > 
> > 
> > Don't know.  I've been on 5.8.0 for a long time.  Nothing has broken
> > during any perl upgrades on gentoo, but binary distros have a whole
> > order of magnitude more sensitivity to package versions.
> 
> This isn't a binary distro issue.  Haphazardly upgrading perl might 
> break or not break things, regardless of whether you build from source, 
> or install binaries.  I'm just not sure if there is risk in upgrading. 
> I almost always build from SRPMS.

If you have enough stuff, you will eventially experience "wrinkles." 
There are just too many permutations and combinations with open software
to know for sure.  I've experience no problems with perl upgrades, but
then I'm not sure what "haphazard upgrading" entails.  If you run a
critical server the process is quite different than for a desktop.

Good luck with perl.

-- 
Collins Richey - Denver Area
Gentoo stable