What exactly is Pearl? What's the best way to learn it? I don't have programming experience.?

Answer 1

It is an interpreted high level computer programming language. And it is called Perl. If you have no programming experience, I wouldn't attempt it. If you don't already know control flow, scope, and regular expressions, you won't be able to use Perl. If you insist on pursuing it, I would get an O'Reilly book.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnperl4/

Answer 2

Perl is a scripting language developed by a career unix sysadmin and developer named Larry Wall. Wall wanted a powerful scripting language that was very good at text processing. Over the years it has become very popular, and is still often used in the unix world to solve complicated problems. Like other scripting languages people have written about any type of application there is, from websites to bulletin boards to a web server. One of the influential aspects of Perl was CPAN, a system that allowed people to share perl libraries, and allow other people to add those libraries to their system easily, via the internet.

Perl is a powerful language, and you can do about anything with it, since it was meant to be a swiss army knife. Some of the code and syntax can be cryptic, as the syntax was derived from a combination of unix shell scripting and c syntax. One of the neat things about Perl is its dynamic associative arrays.

The problem for perl at this juncture is that a lot of other scripting languages are out there. It will be around for a long time, as many Unix packages used perl as a build tool, or to provide utilities. With that said, its not used as much in web development, as .net/asp, java, php and coldfusion are all more focused on being good server side web languages. The last few years Ruby has become a very popular scripting alternative to perl, due to its object oriented design. Perl has oop syntax, but that was tacked on after the language had been in use for many years. Oop purists tend to prefer Ruby now.

I used Perl back in the late 90's for some things and you can do some neat stuff in it with minimal code, when compared to other compiled languages, but it's definately not the hot technology it was back then.

As for how to get started using it: very simple. Download and install it for your OS. Google perl tutorials, and if you want a book, check out Amazon. There are loads of them out there.

Answer 3

PERL stands for Practical Extraction and Reporting Language.

Don't you pay any heed whatsoever to all those
detractors. Perl is an extremely simple, effective,
and very powerful language to learn. The syntax can
take a bit of getting used to, but thats the worst of it.
You can even write poetry with it. Try doing that with
something like 'C'. Says it all really.

P = pretty, 'C' = clumsy, 'C++' = very, very clumsy!


HTH


Good luck.

Answer 4

PERL is a programming language like any others. Best way to learn it, is to write programs in the language. Find yourself a good language reference, and attempt to write a short script to query your system. I've used PERL on a few occasions for webdesign, and for locallized script to query hard drive space on all my servers.

Answer 5

pearl is a programming language that is sometimes used for certain websites - pearlscript. the best way to learn is to find a book for dummies. the best book would probably be one that comes with a compiler. good luck!

Answer 6

Pearl is the glossy, spherical gemstone found in oysters. The pearl is one of only two non-mineral gemstones, the other one being ivory.

Answer 7

You don't want to know and you don't want to learn. Try C.

Answer 8

I think she is a receptionist at our local cinema.