What is "Modern Perl"?

Question

I have been hearing a lot about this "Modern Perl." Can anyone explain what it is?

One of the things I heard was the new open syntax:

open my $FH, '<', $filename

and not

open FH, "<$filename";

What else is in Modern Perl?

Thanks, Boda Cydo.

Answer 1

Modern perl isn't a proper noun, it's just something people might say to refer to perl code that uses features only available in the last X years, where X will vary from person to person.

For information about various changes to perl, see the perldelta files, for instance at http://perldoc.perl.org/index-history.html

Answer 2

To quote the source

Modern Perl programming, circa 2010, relies on the collected wisdom of the entire Perl ecosystem. It's time to write elegant, reliable, maintainable, well-tested, and predictable code.

See also, the book. And this quote from the book

Modern Perl is a loose description of how experienced and effective Perl 5 programers work. They use language idioms. They take advantage of the CPAN. They're recognizably Perlish, and they show good taste and craftsmanship and a full understanding of Perl.

Answer 3

To add some specifics to deinst's overview, Modern Perl:

• uses Perl 5.10's new features, like switch statements (given / when) and say
• follows good Perl programming practices, like use strict and use warnings
• may use the Modern::Perl CPAN module to streamline all of this
• uses Moose for writing high-level OO code