> 5.6 is reported to be quite buggy. Oh, I didn't know that. Is 5.6 the successor of 5.005 or has there been a 5.1, 5.2, ...?
Yes, 5.6 is the direct child of 5.005 ... the folks who maintain Perl (rightly) decided that people weren't realizing how much difference was going on between the various releases because of the 2 extra 0's, so the decided to take them out.
in other words 5.004 + $1_generation == 5.005 5.005 + $1_generation == 5.6 And if there are future incremental releases before Perl 6 5.6 + $1_generation == 5.7 etc, etc