Perl 5.17.6 is now available

In case it's not clear, this is a development version along the road to the stable 5.18 release, expected in May 2013.<p>The Perl core team are getting very good at timeboxing their development and releasing on time.

Here's the delta with the changes: <a href="https://metacpan.org/module/RJBS/perl-5.17.6/pod/perldelta.pod" rel="nofollow">https://metacpan.org/module/RJBS/perl-5.17.6/pod/perldelta.p...</a>

I'd be genuinely interested in reasons why I should learn Perl? I've been hacking away at some Perl interfaces lately but finding it difficult. It seems like a big language (I'm reading Perl Programming, which is certainly a big book).<p>So rather than just hacking away, is there a good reason I should learn the language properly and push through "Perl Programming" or say learning Ruby, Python or golang really well. Will Perl remain relevant in 15 years time? Or at least more relevant than other current languages with similar applications?<p>I should say that I come from a background of C and C++ programming, which may effect my mindset somewhat.

Good to see so much active work on Unicode support. Really feels like Perl is coming in to its own as the language to use with Unicode text...

Oh, we've done a little Perl code challenge to win some free beer lately: <a href="http://www.sipwise.com/news/jobs/hiring-by-curiosity-part-1/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sipwise.com/news/jobs/hiring-by-curiosity-part-1/</a><p>The free beer event is already over, but it's still fun to try if you can make it :)

Thank you perl! You taught me ruby..... And you taught me, how to be dynamic ...

Fifteen years ago, people would have found this interesting.