> $ perl -wle 'print 2**99'
> 6.33825300114115e+29
>
> $ ruby -wle 'print 2**99'
> 633825300114114700748351602688
>
> $ perl -wle 'print 9**9**5'
> inf
>
> $ ruby -wle 'print 9**9**5'
> 1163964896171447645003711273838351370118119528741870708047727598123267112930
> 6111037903049760060898121238296130301019497278726966272049388713194128225979
> 0233081290924196740856977261251272318881097024932788534895797954088979392032
> 7738428577367953596166126106831822401524421292985114258127612235972114773252
> 5778322807185432006841500874332599997098613753825177560964766837277637864923
> 8576839226487925173752881910807257686606441838099952474016813167775933784942
> and so on [1]
>
> Though even Ruby gives up after a while.
>
> $ ruby -wle 'print 9**9**9'
> -e:1: warning: in a**b, b may be too big
> Infinity
>
>
> [1] Worth noting that Ruby gets this done in about 2.5 seconds while perl with
> bigint takes 30.  They're probably using gmp.