X-Git-Url: http://git.shadowcat.co.uk/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?a=blobdiff_plain;f=pod%2Fperlfaq1.pod;h=c6d53b3161bae0761c12fbb49df2b58ed3da3e28;hb=f648820cb158526d3c3e16f712206316f2112b7e;hp=ad7c68a124b791c3e7d45db013272df59d60b1bc;hpb=3fe9a6f19eb206c685bd7389e54e2838fdfd04b7;p=p5sagit%2Fp5-mst-13.2.git diff --git a/pod/perlfaq1.pod b/pod/perlfaq1.pod index ad7c68a..c6d53b3 100644 --- a/pod/perlfaq1.pod +++ b/pod/perlfaq1.pod @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ =head1 NAME -perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.11 $, $Date: 1997/03/19 17:23:09 $) +perlfaq1 - General Questions About Perl ($Revision: 1.15 $, $Date: 1998/08/05 11:52:24 $) =head1 DESCRIPTION @@ -29,13 +29,14 @@ distribution policy of perl. Perl is supported by its users. The core, the standard Perl library, the optional modules, and the documentation you're reading now were all written by volunteers. See the personal note at the end of the README file in the perl source -distribution for more details. +distribution for more details. See L (new as of 5.005) +for Perl's milestone releases. In particular, the core development team (known as the Perl Porters) are a rag-tag band of highly altruistic individuals committed to producing better software for free than you could hope to purchase for money. You may snoop on pending -developments via news://genetics.upenn.edu/perl.porters-gw/ and +developments via news://news.perl.com/perl.porters-gw/ and http://www.frii.com/~gnat/perl/porters/summary.html. While the GNU project includes Perl in its distributions, there's no @@ -50,12 +51,12 @@ users the informal support will more than suffice. See the answer to =head2 Which version of Perl should I use? You should definitely use version 5. Version 4 is old, limited, and -no longer maintained. Its last patch (4.036) was in 1992. The last -production release was 5.003, and the current experimental release for -those at the bleeding edge (as of 27/03/97) is 5.003_92, considered a beta -for production release 5.004, which will probably be out by the time -you read this. Further references to the Perl language in this document -refer to the current production release unless otherwise specified. +no longer maintained; its last patch (4.036) was in 1992. The most +recent production release is 5.005_01. Further references to the Perl +language in this document refer to this production release unless +otherwise specified. There may be one or more official bug fixes for +5.005_01 by the time you read this, and also perhaps some experimental +versions on the way to the next release. =head2 What are perl4 and perl5? @@ -77,6 +78,8 @@ To avoid the "what language is perl5?" confusion, some people prefer to simply use "perl" to refer to the latest version of perl and avoid using "perl5" altogether. It's not really that big a deal, though. +See L for a history of Perl revisions. + =head2 How stable is Perl? Production releases, which incorporate bug fixes and new functionality, @@ -92,10 +95,10 @@ and the rare new keyword). =head2 Is Perl difficult to learn? -Perl is easy to start learning -- and easy to keep learning. It looks -like most programming languages you're likely to have had experience +No, Perl is easy to start learning -- and easy to keep learning. It looks +like most programming languages you're likely to have experience with, so if you've ever written an C program, an awk script, a shell -script, or even an Excel macro, you're already part way there. +script, or even BASIC program, you're already part way there. Most tasks only require a small subset of the Perl language. One of the guiding mottos for Perl development is "there's more than one way @@ -190,11 +193,12 @@ In "standard terminology" a I has been compiled to physical machine code once, and can then be be run multiple times, whereas a I