people talk about perl compiling things, because perl is a compiling interpreter, which means it compiles your skript at runtime. (except for evals, and the like, ...)
there is also a CPAN module that can be used as a backend to create C or bytecode.
Note:perlfaq3 says the following about it:

In general, the compiler will do nothing to make a Perl program smaller, faster, more portable, or more secure. In fact, it will usually hurt all of those.