[Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a. Pathologically
Eclectic Rubbish Lister] An interpreted language developed by Larry
Wall, author of patch(1) and rn(1)). Superficially resembles {awk},
but is much hairier, including many facilities reminiscent of sed(1)
and shells and a comprehensive Unix system-call interface. Unix
sysadmins, who are almost always incorrigible hackers, generally
consider it one of the {languages of choice}, and it is by far the
most widely used tool for making `live' web pages via CGI. Perl has
been described, in a parody of a famous remark about lex(1), as the
{Swiss-Army chainsaw} of Unix programming. Though Perl is very
useful, it would be a stretch to describe it as pretty or {elegant};
people who like clean, spare design generally prefer {Python}. See
also {Camel Book}, {TMTOWTDI}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {awk}{Camel Book}{demigod}{INTERCAL}{joe code}{languages of choice}{MFTL}{one-liner wars}{Python}{spaceship operator}{Swiss-Army chainsaw}{TMTOWTDI}]