[sf-perl] perl on a mac ...

[Jared Rhine]

On Thu, 2008-11-20 at 00:01 -0800, Darin Fisher wrote:
> ...effort to keep PERL in the forefront...

"PERL" (all upppercase) is an error.  Repent!

--- Question 12 of perlfaq1 ---

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.

-------

Keeping within the "rant" spirit that started this thread, for $DEITY
sake, if you are applying for a job in a technology, try to spell that
technology properly.  I've passed over many a resume based on people
listing "PERL" expertise.  I hope to find refuge from that travesty here
with the perl mongers...

-- Jared