I would say that most of this should be covered in your course material.

The short overview is that Perl creates bytecode, by running the C code that sits behind eval. The resulting bytecode/data structure is then executed by the Perl interpreter. All machine code that Perl runs has already been compiled in the perl executable when the program was built.

If you are new to perl, this is a sort of question that'll give you a load of answers that don't make a lot of sense. However, I might offer perlguts illustrated for what's going on behind the scenes. Also possibly the perlcompile documentation page

It does end up as machine code - as does everything that ever runs on your system. But very few people work in machine code any more, because it's low level and hard work and gives very little net benefit outside of some very specific niche applications.

Practically speaking though - it is unlikely that you will need to be digging this deep with perl - the whole point of it is that it's sufficiently high level that you don't need to care about (most) implementation specific details.

It does end up as machine code

Um, no it doesn't. It ends up as bytecode which is then interpreted.

However, understanding the process somewhat is helpful in diagnosing some script failure modes and in understanding the role that BEGIN and friends play. A related area is understanding how modules are loaded, which also has traps for heffalumps near the edges of the envelope.

Premature optimization is the root of all job security

Perhaps a starting point.

Regards, Karl

The Camel has a good description (Chapter 16, "Compiling").

Thank you all! I have some reading to do!