perl introduction

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose programming language that was created by Larry Wall in 1987. The name "Perl" originally stood for "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language," but it has since come to be known as the "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" due to its flexibility and power.

Perl is known for its ability to handle text processing and regular expressions, making it especially useful for tasks like parsing log files, extracting data from websites, and manipulating text. However, Perl can also be used for a wide variety of other programming tasks, including system administration, web development, and graphics programming.

One of the key features of Perl is its expressiveness, which allows programmers to write code that is both concise and readable. Perl also provides a large number of built-in functions and modules, making it easy to perform common programming tasks without having to write everything from scratch.

Perl code is typically interpreted rather than compiled, meaning that it can be run on any platform without the need for platform-specific compilation. However, Perl can also be compiled into an executable for improved performance and distribution.