OP's pretty clearly not a seasoned programmer or he would know the difference between a program and an operating system. Very likely he would know the difference between a batch language and a scripting or programming language even.

However, Perl is a pretty good language for teaching people many programming fundamentals (and pretty seriously cools as well). It is rather more forgiving than the more strongly typed languages and more quietly powerful (for some definition of powerful) than the many variants of Basic.

So even for people with green scaly skin that live under a bridge, Perl is a pretty good place to learn something about what a programming language is and does.

OP's pretty clearly not a seasoned programmer or he would know the difference between a program and an operating system. Very likely he would know the difference between a batch language and a scripting or programming language even.

He's most probably a seasoned DOS batch file hacker. His claims about being "a seasoned programmer" either imply he's been an amateur one, which is perfectly respectable, or else, if he means that he's been doing so professionally, are hard to believe. If he's sincere, I'd be very curious to know who's been paying him to concoct .bat files up to the present day. And to actually do what?

OTOH, despite some comments I'm convinced that the OP is not a troll: appearently something or someone gave him the idea that "PERL" is a substitute or analogue or even a portage of DOS batch file interpreter, and I'd be very curious to know what or who this something or someone could be. Maybe because he read somewhere that Perl is used for system administration?

However, Perl is a pretty good language for teaching people many programming fundamentals (and pretty seriously cools as well). It is rather more forgiving than the more strongly typed languages and more quietly powerful (for some definition of powerful) than the many variants of Basic.

Isn't Pascal used any more as the first language for teaching? I haven't received formal programming instruction, but I guess Java is also very popular in this sense, nowadays. All in all, disrespectfully of my dislike for the latter, I think it's a rather good choice.

So even for people with green scaly skin that live under a bridge, Perl is a pretty good place to learn something about what a programming language is and does.

I don't know. I'm half hearted: of course I love Perl so much, and out of many languages I've tried it's the only one I did stick with. But for teaching I think that something more regular and less wild would be more appropriate...

OP's pretty clearly not a seasoned programmer or he would know the difference between a program and an operating system. Very likely he would know the difference between a batch language and a scripting or programming language even.

He's coming from Windoze. I've encountered a number of people like him. They usually have 10+ years of Windoze working at a small company, usually as the #2 or #3 IT person there. They believe that .bat files are the ultimate in user written programs, that .exe files can only be produced by mega corporations, and have not a bit of understanding of programs, operating systems, or other "advanced" concepts.

Just be glad he's starting to break out of this and learn something new. What I'm wondering is how his company ended up with a "Sun machine" and what person put him on that project.

I prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Honestly, I can't think of many languages that are bad at teaching fundamentals. Assembler? If you stay away from pointers, C?

Heh, I even tried teaching someone using Forth once. :-D

It wasn't a success, but I don't think it was the language choice that was the problem. ;)

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DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel