Overview of the Course
Get an introduction to the Perl language and its history.
We'll cover the following
History of Perl
Larry Wall released the first version of Perl in 1987. The language grew from its niche as a tool for system administrators who needed something more powerful than shell scripting and easier to use than C programming into a general-purpose programming language. Perl has a solid history of pragmatism and, in recent years, a disciplined approach to the enhancement and backward compatibility.
Over the course of Perl’s long history—Perl 5 has been continually refined over the past twenty years—our understanding of what makes great Perl programs has changed. While we can write productive programs that never take advantage of all the language has to offer, the global Perl community has invented, borrowed, enhanced, and polished ideas and made them available to anyone willing to learn them.
Modern Perl is a mindset. It’s an approach to writing great software with the Perl programming language. It’s how effective Perl programmers write powerful, maintainable, scalable, concise, and excellent code. It takes advantage of Perl’s extensive library of free software (the CPAN) and language features designed to multiply our productivity.
Who’s this course for?
You’ll benefit greatly from this course if you already have some experience with Perl or another programming language. If you’re comfortable writing and executing programs (and are happy to consult the documentation when it’s mentioned), you’ll get the most out of this course.