Perl 5.10's first release candidate coming soon

The first release candidate of Perl 5.10, with the first new syntax and major features since 2002, will be released soon, probably in the next week or two. The code has been in feature freeze for weeks, and only minor patches are being accepted. Lately the VMS porters have been working on compatibility problems with File::Spec and File::Patch, and Jos Boumans and Ken Williams are syncing core CPAN modules with the Perl source trunk.

For a gentle and well-presented introduction to the features in Perl 5.10, see Ricardo Signes' slides for his talk Perl 5.10 For People Who Aren't Totally Insane.

Please note that Perl 5.10 is not Ponie. Ponie was the project that was to put Perl 5.10 on top of the Parrot virtual machine, but Ponie has been put out to pasture.