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

[Kevin van Haaren <kevinv@hockey.net>]

At 10:58 PM +0900 11/20/99, Joel Rees wrote:
>Okay, I am required by my job to learn Perl so I can teach it.

I think you are asking the wrong questions, at least as far as 
learning/teaching Perl is concerned.  I didn't learn C by figuring 
out how the compilers work, I didn't learn Forth by figuring out how 
it does it's stack manipulations.  First I learned the langauges 
themselves, then started to delve in the underpinnings of how various 
things are done.

How it compares to C and Forth are about the same as Forth vs. C. 
Completely different, but as with all programming languages many 
concepts still cross-over.  Perl is written in C (and I believe the 
Perl 6 will be written in C++), and yes it probably could be written 
in Perl, but it's already done in C so I doubt anyone would want to 
reinvent the wheel by rewriting it in Perl (but you never now, there 
is a project underway to make all unix commands available in Perl).

Recommended reading for getting started learning the language:
O'Reilly's Programming Perl book (The "Camel" book)
Magazine The Perl Journal (http://www.tpj.com)
If teaching/learning on a Mac: MacPerl Power and Ease (printed by 
Prime Time Freeware)

For learning about how it works under the hood:
The source code
The Perl Journal also runs regular columns on the underpinnings of 
perl implementations

Kevin


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