FAQ 1.12 What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?
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From: PerlFAQ Server on 19 Feb 2010 06:00 This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq1.pod, which comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org . -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.12: What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"? One bit. Oh, you weren't talking ASCII? :-) Larry now uses "Perl" to signify the language proper and "perl" the implementation of it, i.e. the current interpreter. Hence Tom's quip that "Nothing but perl can parse Perl." Before the first edition of *Programming perl*, people commonly referred to the language as "perl", and its name appeared that way in the title because it referred to the interpreter. In the book, Randal Schwartz capitalised the language's name to make it stand out better when typeset. This convention was adopted by the community, and the second edition became *Programming Perl*, using the capitalized version of the name to refer to the language. You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look good, while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The perlfaq-workers, a group of volunteers, maintain the perlfaq. They are not necessarily experts in every domain where Perl might show up, so please include as much information as possible and relevant in any corrections. The perlfaq-workers also don't have access to every operating system or platform, so please include relevant details for corrections to examples that do not work on particular platforms. Working code is greatly appreciated. If you'd like to help maintain the perlfaq, see the details in perlfaq.pod. |