I'd used awk to do some file processing at a previous employer about '96 or '97 after rewriting almost identical C programs about a dozen times to do roughly the same task. When I started working at a new job, I needed a similar tool to do some text mangling. Perl seemed to be much more flexible than awk and faster to develop than a C program, and, as someone else has said already, there didn't seem to be anything it couldn't do.

It worked really well, was fast to develop and to execute, and that led to a one-time contract for a web site guy, which led to lots of work during the Internet boom. Fun stuff. Thanks Larry!

Alex / talexb / Toronto

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

In reply to Re: I first became interested in Perl because... by talexb
in thread I first became interested in Perl because... by jimt

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