Hello, i'm interested on learning the PERL language and I do not have any idea on the installation and what really PERL does although i've made research but still confused. Is PERL for the WEB like PHP? or it is like C for creating executable applications?.. I have E-books of PERL although when I read it, it already starts on the coding and doesnt have any manual for the installation and compiling and using the PERL... any one? help? can redirect me to some useful resources? thanks

http://www.activestate.com/Products/languages.mhtml
Perl is a scripting language, more akin to PHP than C

Whilst you can do web stuff in perl, it is a general purpose programming language which can be used for many other applications as well.

If you're using Windows you would use activestate activeperl (see Salems post above), its the easiest way to get perl on your windows computer. If you want to do CGI script you may also want to install an HTTP server. Apache is free (www.apache.org) or you can try using your Windows based HTTP server if it has one.

You may also want to install mySQL which is the most popular internet database software.

If you are not using windows, perl comes with many other operating system so you may already have it installed.

What do you do after you install Active Perl? I just recently installed it, and did not find an IDE or anything, maybe after he installs it he will have the same problem. How would we get to the actual programming. Would you just open a text editer, write your code, and then save it as a .pl? If so, how do you execute it? I believe in linux you just run it through the command line, but what about windows?

See you other thread mruane.