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Web Review - Perl -- Short history of Perl

The June 2001 issue of Fast Company Magazine, page 156, features Perl as being one of the "best-of-the-best innovations

What: The Perl programming language
When: December 18, 1987
Where: Santa Monica, California
Who: Larry Wall, former employee of Unisys Corp., currently affiliated with O'Reilly & Associates Inc.

The Internet economy has its share of stars, from John Chambers to Steve Case. The Perl programming language also deserves a place in the pantheon of Web heroes. Known as the "duct tape of the Internet," Perl has been hailed as the single most important tool for expanding Web sites quickly and for minimizing development times. More than half of the sites on the Web are built using Perl as the foundation, or "glue," that holds together text files and other applications.

How Perl was created, and how it works, is as important as what it does. Perl is a poster child for the open-source software revolution -- volunteer programmers from all over the world work to make it better. And unlike most computer languages, which are based on a strict logic and prescribe a single "right" way to code for an outcome, Perl was created by linguist Larry Wall to mimic natural languages. "There are many ways to say the same thing, depending on what you're optimizing for -- elegance, speed, simplicity," says Wall. This allows Perl programmers a large measure of creative expression in the way that they build sites -- a quality not often found in computer coding.

Like any major computer innovation, Perl has its share of quirks and eccentricities. For example, the most popular physical symbol of this software triumph is . . . the camel. Years ago, O'Reilly & Associates put a camel on the cover of Programming Perl, the bible of Perl developers everywhere. The camel has become so popular that the O'Reilly Web site devotes a section to the ways in which the finer points of trademark law apply to the Perl camel.

It's one of the many indications of the cultlike following that has sprung up around the language. Wall encourages the culture, in whatever strange forms it may take. "With my linguistics background, I've learned that a language without a culture is a dead language," he says. "Encouraging programmers to feel creative in their coding process means that there is a real base of mind power there when we go out and ask them to help us solve technical problems with Perl."
--Alison Overholt

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PERL.COM - The Final Day at The Perl Conference

  • An Overview of Perl -- from Programming Perl, 2nd Edition

  • Perl Culture

  • Evolutionary Changes in Freeware -- An edited excerpt from Larry Wall's Keynote Address at 1997 Perl Conference. Web Review, Apr. 10, 1998

  • Web Review -- Interview with Larry Wall and Tom Christiansen

  • Perl versus .... - some comparative language discussions. Includes Perl versus tcl, python, java, and others.

  • The Perl "Artistic License"



  • Etc

    Society

    Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

    Quotes

    War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

    Bulletin:

    Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

    History:

    Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

    Classic books:

    The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

    Most popular humor pages:

    Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

    The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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    Last updated: September 25, 2020