What is the duct tape that holds the Internet together?
Perl
When?
In 1998, it was also referred to as the "duct tape that holds the Internet together"
What's its nickname?
"the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages
Is this a low-level language?
no
What type of family is it?
high-level family
Of what?
dynamic programming languages
Which languages are included?
Perl 5 and Perl 6.
What is an unofficial acronym?
"Practical Extraction and Reporting Language"
Who wrote it?
Larry Wall
When?
in 1987
What was it's original purpose?
to make report processing easier
Was anything borrowed from other languages?
yes
What?
they liberally borrow ideas from one another.
How did the sixth version begin?
as a redesign of Perl 5
Are they the same language?
no
When did 5 become popular?
the late 1990s
As what?
as a CGI scripting language
Why?
because of its then unsurpassed regular expression and string parsing abilities
Does it work with GUI?
yes
What other apps?
network programming, finance, bioinformatics