Dammit to hell, it seems every time there is a compiler upgrade it breaks half my code. Can't they decide on a language and stick with it?

Perl is pretty stable.

What language?

C++.

Perl, really? What about Perl 6, which is rumored to actually maintain no backwards compatibility with all Perl code that has come before?

Perl 6 is a myth, started by people who can't deal with 5.6.

At least, that's what my wishful thinking says.  YMMV.

Perl 6 will run Perl 5 code but it'll use some kind of weird route to get there, though.

You must have some pretty heavy C++ for it to break so easily.

Perl 6 will run any language imaginable. Even more than one in one program. You just have to declare which parser to use for this method or that class.

Perl 6 will be the Singularity -- be afraid.

Actually you guys are right. Having things stuck on 5.6 is good for productivity since no strange surprises as things break with 5.7, 5.8, 5.9...

Not heavy duty, just normal stuff. Not as bad as the old days where if you tried overloading a cast operator, every compiler except Sun's would core dump.

Got around it by finding the switch to 'stop doing that, ignore all errors'.

C++ ... it must be for an uncommon platform, isn't it?

what?  I do C++ for windows on a daily basis...

Well, MS C++ compiler is garbage before v7.

Oh. I mean C++ compiler on uncommon platform are bad.

perl is stuck on 5.8 not 5.6

5.8 updated unicode, fixed threads, and has 64 bit integers if want them.  also new modules like Memoize, MD5 digest, and mime bas64 are in.

OK, I'm on 5.8.6 and no problems with perl. It never seems to give me drama like other languages do.

No drama!

PE, are you using some compiler-specific features, or custom classes shipped by your compiler vendor?  I've found C++ to be the most remarkably stable language I've ever used save for C.

I didn't bother to find out its specific issues, I just turned on the switch to emulate previous behavior.