Perl’s Evolution: Key Features from 5.10 to 5.34

Perl fans have long awaited Perl 6, and the recent release of Perl 5.34.0 (https://metacpan.org/release/XSAWYERX/perl-5.34.0) brings a wealth of new features, performance boosts, bug fixes, and improvements—perhaps the most exciting Perl update in the past 15 years.

Perl 5.10 (2007)

Important release after a five‑year gap since 5.8. Introduced the defined-or operator (//), state variables, the say function, and many regex enhancements. Also added the experimental smartmatch operator (~~).

Perl 5.12 (2010)

Added “keyword‑plug‑in” support, allowing language extensions without core changes. CPAN authors continued to create new syntax and prototype features.

Perl 5.18 (2013)

Introduced experimental smartmatch and the $_ variable, along with new warning mechanisms. Security‑related changes improved hash randomization to resist algorithmic complexity attacks.

Perl 5.20 (2014)

Featured experimental subroutine signatures, hash/array slice syntax, and postfix dereferencing. Example syntax:

@{$array_ref} becomes $array_ref->@*
%{$hash_ref} becomes $hash_ref->%*

Perl 5.22 (2015)

Moved subroutine signatures between the name and attribute list, added performance and security updates, and deprecated the long‑standing CGI module (originally added in 1997) in favor of newer alternatives.

Perl 5.26 (2017)

Added experimental features for new subroutine syntax, improved readability with documentation indentation, and introduced regex modifiers such as @{^CAPTURE}, %{^CAPTURE}, and %{^CAPTURE_ALL}.

Perl 5.28 (2018)

Continued experimentation with subroutine signatures and attribute ordering.

Perl 5.30 (2019)

Provided a migration path for developers coming from AWK and Fortran.

Perl 5.32 (2020)

The development moved to GitHub, emphasizing readability. Added the isa operator: if ( $obj isa Some::Class ) { ... } Also introduced chainable comparison operators for more concise expressions.