That's really quite a silly thing

Bravo!++

"Perl" is not an acronym. The name came first, and some people put on some acronym-ish words onto it later (in other words, a "backronym", much the same way some people call LISP "Lots of Irritating, Silly Parens"). But in reality, it's just "Perl", no acronym.

The name is mostly a way of identifying who is "in the know" and not. People who use "Perl" and "perl" correctly can be identified as having some basic level of community knowledge. It's much the same as the fact that there is a trick to post to the alt.hackers newsgroup. This is a historically common way of seperating the chaff on the Internet.

The name is mostly a way of identifying who is "in the know" and not. People who use "Perl" and "perl" correctly can be identified as having some basic level of community knowledge.

Well that's all well & good if you subscribe to an elitist philosophy. I see it more as a ritualistic hazing that perpetuates in the monastery. It's a joke that never gets old, like when you go skiing & people on the chairlift clack their skis together to drop snow on the heads of people below them. I've fallen victem to this one myself; And that was after years of professionally developing Perl applications. It begs the question, if a 'back-ronym' is widely known & accepted, then does it replace the original word? And if so, does that make writing "PERL" ok? The generally accepted response is "no".

But the reality is that this is one of those pieces of misinformation that have gotten propagated early on in Perl's history, made it's way into poorly researched FAQ's & books, and has been passed on as folklore. As such it has become one of the most repeated criticisms in the history of the site. And while in frequency it wouldn't hold a candle to "use strict" neither does it hold nearly as much merit.



Wait! This isn't a Parachute, this is a Backpack!

That's really quite a silly thing - since it is an acronym after all . . .

You obviously didn't read the FAQ in question:

               But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym,
+ 
               apocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithst
+anding.
[download]

Besides, to paraphrase Data: One is the language's name, the other is not. If you're not going to be correct then you might as well call it "Throat-Warbler-Mangrove" (although one might tire of typing /usr/bin/Luxury-Yacht -e ... all the time).

Trek and Python (Monty) references; if only I could work in Tolkein for the hat trick . . .

Update: Bah, Corrected link to the TNG quotes page.

Of course, the difference between Perl and PERL is hard to distinguish aurally. Please don't flame or -- me; this is just humor. Sick, yes, but humor nevertheless.

In fact I did read the FAQ. If it's not an acronym, it sure is a coincidence.

http://search.cpan.org/src/NWCLARK/perl-5.8.4/META.yml

Note the abstract is "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Isn't that an "official" statement?

But I really don't want to argue about this. I'll go back to my first statement that it's all quite silly. So, I concede to you all who say Perl and not PERL. I will remain "outside of the know" :)

[exit stage left]

This isn't an argument, it's just contradiction.

(Carp, that's still Python . . .)

As hardburn points out below, that was a retronym backronym coined after the language was named. If you read chapter 27 of the Camel it gives the full history of where "Perl" came from (and where the "A" for "And" went).

Update: Bah, bacro- not retro-. I'm going back to bed.