Perl is an easy-to-learn language for just about
everything
What is it?
As it approaches its 20th birthday, Perl (Practical Extraction
Report Language) has become pervasive, bundled by market-leading
suppliers, underpinning businesses such as Amazon, and quietly
carrying out essential tasks at sites where management may not
realise they have a line of Perl code.
Originally developed for text manipulation, Perl has evolved
into a general-purpose programming language used in everything from
large critical applications to small nuts-and-bolts jobs in systems
administration and web development.
Perl's development has favoured practicality and ease of use
over elegance. It has been described as untidy and even ugly, but
its support for most programming paradigms and other languages make
it both a good entry and jumping-off point for people who want to
expand their range of skills.
For those who feel stuck in a rut because there is no personal
or organisational training budget, there is a supportive community
and a wealth of training and other resources available free to help
you become proficient in Perl.
Where did it originate?
Perl traces its ancestry back to C, with elements of Fortran,
Lisp, Ada and lesser-known languages such as Awk. It was released
in 1987 by Larry Wall, then working at Unisys. Perl 5 replaced Perl
4 (the successor to Perl 1) in 1994. Wall began gathering the
community's thoughts on what should be in Perl 6 in 2000, but it
has yet to be officially released.
What's it for?
Perl is an essential part of the Lamp (Linux, Apache, MySQL,
Perl/Python/PHP) web development stack, and was an early favourite
for writing CGI scripts.
Other uses include as a "glue" language, favoured by systems
administrators as a way of getting heterogeneous systems to work
together. It has been dubbed "the duct tape of the internet".
It is also widely used to generate SQL queries and in other
database applications. Its database integration interface supports
Oracle and SQL Server as well as MySQL and Postgres. A host of
third-party modules is available.
What makes it special?
Perl was designed at a time when CPU power was becoming cheaper,
and programmers' time more expensive - a reversal of the situation
that prevailed when older languages were developed.
It is a very forgiving language. There are plenty of "right"
ways of doing things. It supports procedural, object-oriented and
other programming paradigms, and has many features, such as
automatic memory management, to lighten the developer's load.
How difficult is it to master?
Perl was designed to be easy to learn. Those with a coding
background - particularly in Unix and C - can begin using Perl
after an evening's tutorial, although what they can do will be
limited. Becoming proficient takes longer, but you can learn as you
code.
What systems does it run on?
Linux, Unix, Windows, Macintosh, and "legacy" systems such as
VMS.
What's coming up?
Although stable and widely used, Perl 5 has internal flaws that
complicate maintenance and the further development of the language.
Perl 6, designed by the Perl community - or designed by committee,
as detractors would have it - addresses these weaknesses, and makes
some major changes, including interchangeable runtime engines that
interpret and convert bytecode to and from other languages.
Rates of pay
Perl developers can earn £25,000 to £35,000. Perl is also a
required part of many web development and systems admin skills
portfolios.
Training
The Perl bible, Programming Perl, is published by O'Reilly and
Associates. Also take a look at:
www.perl.org
www.perl.com
www.pm.org
training
rates of pay
Perl developers can earn £25,000 to £35,000. Perl is also a
required part of many web development and systems admin skills
portfolios.
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