Perl 最初的设计者为拉里·沃尔(Larry Wall)，它于1987年12月18日发表。Perl借取了C、sed、awk、shell scripting以及很多其他程序语言的特性。Larry Wall在新闻组comp.sources.misc发布了Perl脚本语言1.0版，当时他是Unisys公司的一名程序员。Perl借鉴了sh、Awk和Sed等脚本语言的特性，试图成为一个能简化报告处理的通用 Unix脚本语言。 Perl 2在1988年发布，增加了更多特性，拥有更好的正则表达式引擎。Perl 3和 Perl 4分别在1989年和1991年发布，而1994年发布的 Perl 5则是最重要的一个版本，至今仍在开发中。2000年启动的Perl 6则完全重写了Perl，基于不同的原则，开发者决定先制定语言规格。Perl 6的发布日期被认为是圣诞节，但没有指定哪一年的圣诞节。Perl 5公布了16个版本，Perl 5.6在2000年发布，Perl 5.8的持续开发贯穿了2002-08年，5.10在2007年发布，5.12在2010年发布，此后  Perl开始采用每月发布一个版本每年发布一个稳定版本的发布周期，5.14在2011年发布，5.16于2012年发布。 Perl 一般被称为“实用报表提取语言”(PracticalExtraction andReportLanguage)，虽然有时被称做“病态折中垃圾列表器”(PathologicallyEclectic Rubbish Lister)。它是术语，而不仅仅是简写，Perl的创造者，LarryWall提出第一个，但很快又扩展到第二个。那就是为什么“Perl”没有所有 字母都大写。没必要争论那一个正确，Larry 两个都认可。你也可能看到“perl”，所有的字母都是小写的。一般，“Perl”，有大写的 P，是指语言本身，而“perl”，小写的 p，是指程序运行的解释器。Perl的正式网站是 lwall@jpl-dexxav.JPL.NASA.GOV(Larry Wall) Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.poems,comp.lang.perl Subject: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: comp.lang.perl.poems Message-ID: Date: 1 Apr 90 00:00:00 GMT Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NSAS.GOV(Larry Wall) Organization: Jet Prepulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Lines: 61 It has come to my attention that there is a crying need for a place for people to express both their emotional and technical natures simultaneously. Several people have sent me some items which don't fit into any newsgroup. Perhaps it's because I recently posted to both comp.lang.perl and to rec.arts.poems, but people seem to be writing poems in Perl, and they're asking me where they should post them. Here is a sampling: From a graduate student (in finals week), the following haiku: study, write, study, do review (each word) if time. close book. sleep? what's that? And someone writing from Fort Lauderdale writes: sleep, close together, sort of sin each spring & wait; 50% die A person who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following example of "Black Perl".  (The Pearl poet would have been shocked, no doubt.) BEFOREHAND: close door, each window & exit;  wait until time. open spellbook, study, read (scan, select, tell us); write it, print the hex while each watches, reverse its length, write again; kill spiders, pop them, chop, split, kill them. unlink arms, shift, wait & listen (listening, wait), sort the flock (then, warn the "goats" & kill the "sheep"); kill them, dump qualms, shift moralities, values aside, each one; die sheep! die to reverse the system you accept (reject, respect); next step, kill the next sacrifice, each sacrifice, wait, redo ritual until "all the spirits are pleased"; do it ("as they say"). do it(*everyone***must***participate***in***forbidden**s*e*x*). return last victim; package body; exit crypt (time, times & "half a time") & close it, select (quickly) & warn your next victim; AFTERWORDS: tell nobody. wait, wait until time; wait until next year, next decade; sleep, sleep, die yourself, die at last I tried that, and it actually parses in Perl.  It doesn't appear to do anything useful, however.  I think I'm glad, actually... I hereby propose the creation of comp.lang.perl.poems as a place for such items, so we don't clutter the perl or poems newsgroups with things that may be of interest to neither.  Or, alternately, we should create rec.arts.poems.perl for items such as those above which merely parse, and don't do anything useful.  (There is precedent in rec.arts.poems, after all.)  Then also create comp.lang.perl.poems for poems that actually do something, such as this haiku of my own: print STDOUT q Just another Perl hacker, unless $spring Larry Wall            lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov