Perl 最初的设计者为拉里·沃尔（Larry Wall），它于1987年12月18日发表。Perl借取了C、sed、awk、shell scripting以及很多其他程序语言的特性。
Perl 一般被称为“实用报表提取语言”（PracticalExtraction andReportLanguage），虽然有时被称做“病态折中垃圾列表器”(PathologicallyEclectic Rubbish Lister)。它是术语，而不仅仅是简写，Perl的创造者，LarryWall提出第一个，但很快又扩展到第二个。那就是为什么“Perl”没有所有字母都大写。没必要争论那一个正确，Larry 两个都认可。
你也可能看到“perl”，所有的字母都是小写的。一般，“Perl”，有大写的 P，是指语言本身，而“perl”，小写的 p，是指程序运行的解释器。
Perl的正式网站是 www.perl.org。
Perl的解释程序是开放源码的免费软件，使用Perl不必担心费用。Perl能在绝大多数操作系统运行，可以方便地向不同操作系统迁移。
Perl 是一种能完成任务的语言。从一开始，Perl 就设计成可以把简单工作简单化，同时又不失去处理困难问题能力的语言。它可以很容易操作数字，文本，文件和目录，计算机和网络，特别是程序的语言。这种语言应该很容易运行外部的程序并且扫描这些程序的输出获取感兴趣的东西。而且它还应该很容易能把这些你感兴趣的东西交给其它程序做特殊的处理。当然，这种语言还应该很容易在任何现代的操作系统上可以移植地编译和运行。
PERL 追求的是简单, 解决一个一般的问题用它几行代码就完成了. 一个稍复杂一点的问题代码也不会超过一屏! 事实上, 大多数人用PERL写的程序大多都没超过100行.
Perl Facts
- Perl is a stable, cross platform programming language.
- It is used for mission critical projects in the public and private sectors.
- Perl is Open Source software, licensed under its Artistic License, or the GNU General Public License (GPL).
- Perl was created by Larry Wall.
- Perl 1.0 was released to usenet's alt.comp.sources in 1987
- PC Magazine named Perl a finalist for its 1998 Technical Excellence Award in the Development Tool category.
- Perl is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Supported Operating Systems
Perl Features
- Perl takes the best features from other languages, such as C, awk, sed, sh, and BASIC, among others.
- Perls database integration interface (DBI) supports third-party databases including Oracle, Sybase, Postgres, MySQL and others.
- Perl works with HTML, XML, and other mark-up languages.
- Perl supports Unicode.
- Perl is Y2K compliant.
- Perl supports both procedural and object-oriented programming.
- Perl interfaces with external C/C++ libraries through XS or SWIG.
- Perl is extensible. There are over 500 third party modules available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN).
- The Perl interpreter can be embedded into other systems.
Perl and the Web
- Perl is the most popular web programming language due to its text manipulation capabilities and rapid development cycle.
- Perl is widely known as " the duct-tape of the Internet".
- Perl's CGI.pm module, part of Perl's standard distribution, makes handling HTML forms simple.
- Perl can handle encrypted Web data, including e-commerce transactions.
- Perl can be embedded into web servers to speed up processing by as much as 2000%.
- mod_perl allows the Apache web server to embed a Perl interpreter.
- Perl's DBI package makes web-database integration easy.
