Little more background,... I just PCS'd to this organization last September, coming from a previous assignment where the systems were actually up to date (kind of, purl 5.6.1) . Started learning the systems here and saw they were doing some things in shell scripts that perl could do MUCH faster and reliable. To demonstrate that I rewrote a long and overly complex ksh script (ksh '88) that was 221 lines into perl. The perl script ran in about 45 seconds... Where the shell script took 2-3 hours.
Since that wasn't enough, I'm looking for some eyebrow raising evidence that not upgrading could/will be detrimental to the systems here. But then again, I may just end up shooting myself in the foot and have them respond... "well don't use perl, use sh". Which is also out-dated on these systems. Honestly, I don't think the servers here have been patched/updated in 10-15 years. -----Original Message----- From: Brent Michalski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 1:43 PM To: Jensen Kenneth B SrA AFPC/DPDMPQ Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: perl4 vs. perl5 Ken, The fact that our military is still using something THAT antiquated and bug riddled is embarassing. I realize that for many things, cost is involved and it makes it harder to push through. Perl is free! Although if the A.F. wishes, I'd be happy to install it for them for a whole lotta money! :o) Depending on the systems you maintain, (since i see you are at the personel center), a compromise of your system(s) due to an ANCIENT software language would be extremely bad. If AFMPC keeps using Perl 4, the terrorists have already won... Brent (11+ years, A.F.) :o) Jensen Kenneth B SrA AFPC/DPDMPQ To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <Kenneth.Jensen@RANDO cc: (bcc: Brent Michalski/STL/MASTERCARD) LPH.AF.MIL> Subject: perl4 vs. perl5 02/04/2003 12:52 PM I am trying to justify to my sys admin office reasons to upgrade our archaic systems from perl4 (4.0.1.8) to at the very least perl 5.004. Does anyone have any info, or references of possible security issues with perl 4? Or perhaps some other dangerous bugs that have been fixed since the perl4 release?. All the new functionality, bells & whistles haven't been enough to persuade them to act on this. I've had a hard time finding much documentation on perl4, besides manuals... which don't exactly point out flaws. TIA, Ken
