A few friends of mine have sinned extensively with the PHP scripting language. However, now they feel that the time is ripe for them to repent and practice the ways of Perl. The question is, just how do I do that? Things are complicated by the fact that I'm relatively pure in that I hardly wrote a line of PHP code in my life.

I know that PHP is relatively similar to Perl, therefore making the learning curve substantially flat. Both Perl and PHP are procedural languages. Most importantly, they seem to share common heritage.

In order for me to be able to explain to a PHP minded guy what Perl is and is not, I think I have to figure answers to these questions, first:
  1. What does Perl have that PHP does not?
  2. Alternatively, what does PHP have that Perl doesn't?
  3. What does Perl do differently than PHP?
  4. Common pitfalls that PHP converts face the first time they start praticing Perl?

I'd sincerely appreciate it if some of the monks in our monastery who had former experience with PHP to figure answers to these questions (and probably other questions that I forgot to mention).

"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels." -- Confession of Faith

In reply to Preaching Perl gospel to PHP converts... by vladb

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