Perl history

[Paul Fenwick]

G'day Tim/Melb.PM,

On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 11:26:46PM +1000, Timothy S. Nelson wrote:

> > respelling of PEARL, arbitrarily chosen for its positive connotations".
> 
> 	Does anyone know if this is correct?  I'd always assumed that the 
> Practical Extraction and Reporting name was designed at the same time.  

	The name then became "Pearl", which mutated into our present-day
	"Perl", partly because Larry saw a reference to another
	language called PEARL, but mostly becausehe's too lazy
	to type five letters all the time.  And, of course, so that
	Perl could be used as a four-letter word.  (You'll note,
	however, the vestiges of the former spelling in the acronym's
	gloss: "Practical Extraction /And/ Report Language".)
		
		-- Camel Book, 3rd Ed, page 646.

My understanding of the "positive connotations" is that all good
Unix commands are four-letters long.  ;)

Cheers,

	Paul


-- 
Paul Fenwick <pjf at perltraining.com.au> | http://perltraining.com.au/
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