Introduction

Perl is an interpreted language optimized for processing arbitrary text files, extracting information, and printing reports. It is also a good language for system management tasks. The language is intended to be practical, easy to use, efficient, and complete, rather than beautiful-tiny, elegant, and minimal. Perl was written by Larry Wall, with help of other contributors.

Perl is bundled with various Linux distros and other UNIX-like systems. You can install it on Windows (R).

Perl is interpreted. This can be either an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your needs. For example, Perl has a short development cycle compared to compiled languages, but it will never reach their efficiency.

Perl is written to be practical. This means that it's complete, easy to use and relatively efficient.

Let's dive into Perl' history!