in reply to Re: iphone apps using PERL
in thread iphone apps using PERL

Correcting the case on the word Perl seems like the typical needless greater than thou attitude that detracts from adoption. Why not lighten up a little? As it is an acronym I would imagine an argument could be made that capitalization of all the characters is not completely unheard of.

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Re^3: iphone apps using PERL
by marto (Cardinal) on Jan 10, 2011 at 20:35 UTC

    An acronym, are you sure? Perlfaq1 - What's the difference between "perl" and "Perl"?:

    "You may or may not choose to follow this usage. For example, parallelism means "awk and perl" and "Python and Perl" look good, while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never write "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal folklore and post-facto expansions notwithstanding."

    I doubt telling someone this, and that they've posted in the wrong section is enough to stop someone adopting a programming language.

Re^3: iphone apps using PERL
by toolic (Bishop) on Jan 10, 2011 at 20:38 UTC
      Considering that the manual page of perl 1 had the "Practical Extraction and Report Language" mentioning, calling it a post-facto expansion is stretching the meaning of "post-facto".

      But let's assume newbies actually read the official Perl documentation. What's the first thing one reads? Right. The "DESCRIPTION" section of the main manual page. (You can't get more official than man perl, can you?) And what is the first sentence of the DESCRIPTION section of "man perl"?

      DESCRIPTION Perl officially stands for Practical Extraction and Report Lang +uage, except when it doesn't.
      It doesn't say when it doesn't stand for Practical Extraction and Report Language. It does say, later on in the same manual page, at the end of the BUGS section:
      Perl actually stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister +, but don't tell anyone I said that.
      (The I is Larry Wall, according to git-blame). Really, with the main manual page suggesting twice that Perl is an acronym, are you surprised that meme doesn't die? It's official Perl documentation; the first quote was last modified less than a year ago, says what Perl officially stands for; the second quote was made by Larry himself.

      And you scold them for not ignoring this, and for not yielding to the perlfaq?

      If you want people to not think Perl is an acronym, start lobbying at p5p to get pod/perl.pod changed.

      While Larry says it should not be PERL, as in an Acronym, it is still listed in the perl doc (perl.pdf or perl.html in perldocs) in Line number 1 and 2: NAME perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language