Scripting language Perl is celebrating twenty-fifth anniversary

The scripting language Perl is today, 25 years: version 1.0, was on 18 december 1987 and released in a newsgroup. The programming language is prized for its flexibility, was in the nineties ubiquitous on the internet, but is now less popular.

On december 18, 1987 uploaded the 33-year-old Unisys employee Larry Wall in the very first version of Perl to the newsgroup comp.sources.misc. The language borrowed left and right features, both from the Unix shell as the programming languages C, AWK, and sed. Initially wanted to Wall the language the name ‘Pearl’ to give, but there was already a programming language with that name to exist. It was chosen for ‘Perl’.

Originally turned Perl only under Unix and was the functionality limited, but the scripting language became more and more elaborate and got support for more platforms, from Linux and BSD to Microsoft Windows and OS X. Even for Symbian, the mobile operating system that Nokia, meanwhile, the hand has done, is Perl available.

In the nineties, loved Perl more or less the internet together, so pervasive was the programming language. Now is that not more so. According to research firm RedMonk is Perl as a scripting language now overtaken by php, Python, and Ruby – three languages, which, incidentally, is by Perl are affected. Perl is in some sectors still popular. Also, large web sites such as the BBC, Ticketmaster and Amazon in the air held by the language.

The last major release of Perl, version 5, dates already from 1994, but according to the Perl Foundation is that because of the way version numbers were assigned when it is changed. Had that not happened, then there were already several major releases. To Perl 6 since 2000 worked, but although Tweakers at the time, wrote that Perl 6 ‘on arrival’ was, is that version still not out.

Do you use Perl?

No, never used

54,2%

No, not any more

14,1%

Yes, sometimes

11,5%

Rarely

10,3%

Yes, often

9,8%

Number of votes: 3.033. Participation closed at 08-01-2013 16:17. Voting is no longer possible.