Installing Perl 5.6.1

["Steve Dondley" <stevedondley@mediaone.net>]

Situation:
Debian ships with Perl 5.005.  But there are more recent versions of Perl
and Debian lists two versions of Perl 5.6.1, "testing" and "unstable".

Questions:
5.6.1 has been out quite a while and Perl.com lists 5.6.1 as "stable". What
about it is not considered "stable" for use on Debian?  Or is the "unstable"
label just some kind of formality?

Is there a way to install 5.6.1 without wiping out 5.005?  In other words,
can I have both versions running on my machine, allowing the scripts to
determine which version of Perl to use?  Please keep in mind I'm a total
Linux newbie and barely know how to use apt-get.

Thanks for your help.