Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
* perlfaq1: What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
	+ Perl had some more history on the Perl vs. perl debate


git-svn-id: http://svn.perl.org/modules/perlfaq/trunk@10000 50811bd7-b8ce-0310-adc1-d9db26280581
  • Loading branch information
comdog committed Sep 26, 2007
1 parent 0a292d6 commit 966c04b
Showing 1 changed file with 17 additions and 7 deletions.
24 changes: 17 additions & 7 deletions perlfaq1.pod
Expand Up @@ -283,13 +283,23 @@ will sleep easier, too--Wall Street programs not withstanding. :-)
=head2 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." You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For
example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look
OK, 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.
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 T<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 eiditon became T<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.

=head2 Is it a Perl program or a Perl script?

Expand Down

0 comments on commit 966c04b

Please sign in to comment.