[MacPerl] what's it look like under the hood?

[Joel Rees <joel_rees@sannet.ne.jp>]

Okay, I am required by my job to learn Perl so I can teach it. I am 
considering learning it for my personal use. I want to know what 
advantages it has over my two favorite languages, FORTH and C.

First, would anyone dare implement Perl in Perl? 

This is an archaic bragging issue that turns out to have been irrelevant, 
but I hope to get an idea of how well Perl supports parsing complex 
grammars. It looks great for parsing e-mail generated by html forms, but 
that's pretty straightforward stuff.

Second, does Perl optimize? How well? Can it reduce constant expressions?

Third, does Perl have multiple internal stacks, specifically splitting 
the control data (return addresses) from the parameter data? (I am one of 
those kinds of programmers with a bad habit of walking on my return 
addresses in C.)

Fourth, what does the Perl symbol table look like? Hash table? Is nesting 
achieved by naming games?

I admit I am being lazy by asking these questions here, instead of in the 
main Perl lists, or even looking in the source code myself. Just trying 
to save time for my family. :-)

joel_rees@sannet.ne.jp

"Pain is just a side benefit of change."

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