🚀 go-pugleaf

:-> In gnu.misc.discuss, tromey@klab.caltech.edu (Tom Tromey) writes:
:But I also don't think that Perl is really a language.  

If you say so.  Does that really matter?  It seems silly
to deny something's being a language because we have just 
one instance of it.  Was C not a language when all that
existed was the original K&R compiler?  Was Cornish not
a language when its native speakers had dwindled to one?

:That is, Perl
:is a language and an implementation.  

Ah -- you mean "Perl" the language versus "perl" the program. :-)

:As I understand it, the language
:is defined by the sole implementation.

Actually, it turns out that there are two different implementations --
they just happen to share a common author.  The version 5.0 release of perl
was a complete rewrite, with an entirely different interpreter mechanism;
consequently, the C API changed dramatically.

--tom
-- 
Tom Christiansen      Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker      tchrist@mox.perl.com
    Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you 
    to stop writing.
		    -- R. Geis