What is Perl?
- Thread starter Shannon
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- GTP_Jordan
- GTP_Jordan
Perl is a server-side programming language that allows programmers to create web applications, like message boards. It is very similar to PHP but I think PHP is much easier to learn, and I know it is much easier to manage on a webserver.
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That may be the most popular use of Perl, but it's so much more than that. It's essentially a scripting language for the UNIX environment.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=*&q=perl
GilesGuthrie
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LM is right. The reason that Perl is in common(ish) use in web development is that pretty much all web servers were UNIX boxes in the early days. Even now, where Apache is dominant in the web server arena, it is UNIX-based.
Early developers were therefore able to use Perl (which was already running on the box) to add some back-end functionality to web sites.
Then came CGI (Common Gateway Interface) that was a set of standards for communicating between client and server, and which facilitated more two-way communication than was available with straight HTTP/HTML. CGI therefore is not a language, it is a protocol. Most CGI-utilising programs are written in Perl.
What I've written thus far basically alleges that Perl is in use in web design merely as an accident of availability, which isn't quite true. Because most web applications involve the transfer of text from server to client and reverse, Perl is ideally suited, because as a language it has very powerful text handling tools built-in.
A number of the advanced string manipulation functions within PHP are basically ported from Perl, but I would say that PHP was a better language to use, because it is absolutely designed as a server-side web language, and because its code can be embedded within the web pages, rather than being called by them.
That said, I know PHP, and I don't know Perl, so I won't be of much use in this forum!
Early developers were therefore able to use Perl (which was already running on the box) to add some back-end functionality to web sites.
Then came CGI (Common Gateway Interface) that was a set of standards for communicating between client and server, and which facilitated more two-way communication than was available with straight HTTP/HTML. CGI therefore is not a language, it is a protocol. Most CGI-utilising programs are written in Perl.
What I've written thus far basically alleges that Perl is in use in web design merely as an accident of availability, which isn't quite true. Because most web applications involve the transfer of text from server to client and reverse, Perl is ideally suited, because as a language it has very powerful text handling tools built-in.
A number of the advanced string manipulation functions within PHP are basically ported from Perl, but I would say that PHP was a better language to use, because it is absolutely designed as a server-side web language, and because its code can be embedded within the web pages, rather than being called by them.
That said, I know PHP, and I don't know Perl, so I won't be of much use in this forum!
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why is this here, Nobody posts here, I bet my post here will remain the latest post for months.
Super-Supra
(Banned)
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Not anymore.
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Perl is widely used for VERY large database searches and modifications.
It is widely used in BioMedical Engineering field to handle large sets of data, such as sequence searching from a file that includes tens of thousands( or sometimes more ) sequences with each sequence being as long as thousand bases.
Perl was not made for a web-site related material, although it is greately suited for it, as Giles mentioned in his post, because of its very powerfull text handling.
Perl is not as powerfull of a language as lets say, Java, C or C++ but its a pony that does one thing better than any other, handling text. Perl has greater regex - or regular expression ability - than any language that I know. It is quicker, and more reliable.
It is one of not many languages that come standard on any UNIX system.
Anyways, those are my two pennies.
-GhostVR4
It is widely used in BioMedical Engineering field to handle large sets of data, such as sequence searching from a file that includes tens of thousands( or sometimes more ) sequences with each sequence being as long as thousand bases.
Perl was not made for a web-site related material, although it is greately suited for it, as Giles mentioned in his post, because of its very powerfull text handling.
Perl is not as powerfull of a language as lets say, Java, C or C++ but its a pony that does one thing better than any other, handling text. Perl has greater regex - or regular expression ability - than any language that I know. It is quicker, and more reliable.
It is one of not many languages that come standard on any UNIX system.
Anyways, those are my two pennies.
-GhostVR4
