Rich Dawe's Perl Page

Introduction

Other than C, Perl is the language that I have programmed the most in of late (the language I've programmed in most is BASIC (gulp)). It bears a close resemblance to C, which is handy if you've programmed in C. However, it has many features that make it so much easier than C to write programs to manipulate text files. It has amazingly powerful search-and-replace functions built-in. This makes it popular for use in CGI programs and for manipulating HTML files (the reason I learnt it).

The reason I like it is that it is really easy to prototype & write applications in it, since it is semi-compiled, meaning that your programs can be tested faster than using C. Perl semi-compiles code in the sense that it compiles it into a form that it can run faster than it could if it interpreted it, but no final executable is produced. Perl then executes the semi-compiled code.

Perl is, to my knowledge, available on Unix and NT. The NT versions doesn't support some Perl functions, and is a bit dodgy when running on Windows 95. Some would say Windows 95 is a bit dodgy, but that doesn't help really. I've used Perl on both Unix and Windows 95, and it seems to produce fast code - not as fast as C, but programs can be written so much faster.

You might also like to take a look at the software I've written in Perl.

Home Sites

The Perl Language Home Page
The Perl FAQ
The Perl Institute
ActiveState - Perl for Win32
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) at Sunsite UK

Home Pages

Nexor's Perl Programming Language Page

Manuals

Perl Manual
Perl Reference

Specific Versions

Windows 32 (NT & '95)

Perl for Win32 FAQ

If you have any (constructive) comments, please e-mail me on webmaster@phekda.gotadsl.co.uk.