What's Perl?

• Perl was invented around 1987, to replace:

  • (a) shell scripts, sed, AWK, etc.

  • (b) C

• It was quite successful

• The original version had only a few data structures:

  • scalar

  • array (one-dimensional, scalar values only)

  • hash (maps strings to scalars)

• All variables were global

  • Dynamic scope available

• The syntax was an amalgam of C, awk, sed, grep, etc.

• Clearly unsuitable for programming in the large

• I would not have written a book about this language

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Copyright 2005 M. J. Dominus