Move minimum required Perl to run Rex up to 5.14.4

[ferki]

As

maintainer

I would like to

bump the minimum required Perl to run Rex to 5.14.4

so I can

start using the benefits of a more modern Perl and sustain maintenance.

Additional context

I find the leaving perl v5.8 behind article a good overall summary of many of the underlying motivations to move towards requiring more modern Perl versions.

Perl version statistics from CPAN Meta DB also indicate a non-existent 5.12.x usage and a rather low 5.14.1 usage (0.2%) among cpanm users.

For Rex specifically, upgrading to 5.14.4 would mean at least the following benefits:

• improved testing:
  • less Perl versions to test with
  • no portable binaries for Strawberry Perl for 5.12 on Windows, which we have to currently skip
• we can use more modern syntax for new contributions:
  • Non-destructive substitution and transliteration
  • package block syntax
  • srand() now returns the seed
  • use re '/flags'
  • Array and hash container functions accept references
  • /d, /l, /u, and /a modifiers
  • Filehandle method calls load IO::File on demand
• match requirements with some external Rex modules on CPAN already depending on at least perl-5.14.4

Describe the solution you would like

I have the following plan in mind:

1. Set the minimum Perl version in the docs, workflows, and dist.ini to 5.14.4.
2. Release a development version of Rex with that in order to gather more feedback via CPAN Testers.
3. Release a normal version later, and gather even more feedback from packagers and users.
4. Start adding 5.14-specific bits to the code base for a later release.

Describe alternatives you have considered

• Keep supporting 5.12.5 as minimum Perl

  Older versions of Perl are unmaintained, and the gap between the past the current versions are constantly getting wider. Staying on 5.12.5 would only benefit those who ignored finding a solution to upgrading Perl for well over a decade. I find it better to endorse healthier practices, and help those affected in other ways.