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in reply to acronym?
in thread PERL related publications...

That's apparently a jokey backronym, but it's quite apt so it has persisted, helped along by the fact that the name "Perl" looks like an acronym. The story AIUI is that the desired name 'Pearl' was already in use for another computer language, so the originator (Larry Wall) damaged the spelling in a way that would keep the pronounciation the same. This has caused it to turn into a sort of shibboleth which stupid people sometime use to bash perceived newbies, but what the hell. Try to ignore it.

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Re^2: acronym?
by jdporter (Paladin) on Feb 27, 2007 at 15:18 UTC
Re^2: acronym?
by NovMonk (Chaplain) on Feb 27, 2007 at 13:57 UTC
    I prefer "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" myself....

    Wonder whatever happened to the "Pearl" computer language?

    Pax,
    NovMonk

Re^2: acronym?
by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on Aug 02, 2007 at 19:58 UTC
    I always thought in that case that Larry could have gone for "Purl". After all, Perl is often used to knit things together.

      I think the chatterbox should be subtitled "nit won, perl too".

      - tye