Perl

Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) is widely used on the Internet to make websites dynamic. It can also be used for other interesting tasks like making web spiders (programs that search the web and can gather and process information for you). The following links include introductions and tutorials for learning Perl. If you want to do web programming with Perl and are using Windows download the Apache2Triad package (mentioned in the PHP section). It includes Perl, the Apache server, PHP, MySQL, Python and more.

If you are using Linux, Perl is probably already on your computer. You can run Linux on your Windows computer by using a Linux live CD like Knoppix or SLAX. See the Linux page for more information. Perl also comes pre-installed on Mac OS X.

If you are just starting to learn how to program, try Python or Ruby instead. Perl is great, but the syntax can easily become very, very scary. Python and Ruby are much cleaner-looking.

Perl Links

Wikipedia on Perl -- Background reading on Perl.
Perl.org -- Directory of Perl resources.
Perl Tutorials -- from PerlMonks.org.
CPAN This is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network which you can use to install additional Perl modules. If you are using Windows, you will probably want to use PPM to install modules. PPM comes with Apache2Triad so if you used Apache2Triad to install Perl then you already have PPM on your Windows computer.
cgi101.com -- Tutorials on using Perl on websites.
Beginning Perl book -- a complete book that you can read online in PDF format.
MacPerl -- a free online book about using Perl on a Mac from MacPerl.com.