Perl, OTOH, is very general. You can do pretty much everything with Perl. There are people who claim Perl isn't suited for writing device drivers, but I am finding it perfectly suited for doing bit-level communication with an RS-232 Bill Acceptor interface on an internet kiosk. Perl also handles CGI, databases, graphics manipulation, system administration, data analysis, GUI interfaces, and pretty much whatever else you can think of.

Perhaps the best reason to learn using Perl, is that Perl uses natural language principles.

Another reason, is that Perl has available the largest archive of free extentions/tools of all programming languages.

Another great thing about Perl is the large community of Perl users. This is an incredibly valuable resource; there is no need to take your first steps alone in the darkness.

For even more reasons, see the Perl page of St. Larry Wall.

Paris Sinclair    |    4a75737420416e6f74686572
pariss@efn.org    |    205065726c204861636b6572
I wear my Geek Code on my finger.

Perl will be a more useful language for you to learn in the long run. However, it's bigger and more complex than PHP. PHP is pretty strongly tied to web pages, whereas Perl can make GUI applications, text-based console applications, and more. This might mean that learning PHP will give you a quicker reward if your ultimate goal is to make web pages.

PHP is a language I use to get a particular kind of job done. That job is integrating databases with web pages. It's very easy to whip up fancy-looking database-backed web pages with PHP because PHP can be embedded in HTML pages and is interpreted in such a way that many common database tasks become very easy. However, as soon as you start wanting to process the data before displaying it, or accessing the filesystem, or running other programs and parsing their output, or sending mail, or ... you're getting into the parts of PHP that aren't its "core strengths" (to put it nicely). At that point I switch to Perl.

There are Perl systems like HTML::Mason, Template, and EmbPerl that let you mix Perl and HTML in the same page. These all require more setup than simply "compile in mod_php", but can be worth the effort of learning how to configure them. They let you avoid PHP.

However, there's no real reason to avoid PHP. It's a fallacy that everything has to be done in one language and one language only. If it's easy to do some things in PHP and to use mod_perl for others, then do what's easiest and what makes sense.

So, my advice: learn both. Which first? Probably PHP because the learnsomething-useit feedback loop is smaller. But do keep your goal of learning Perl in mind, as it'll be far more useful to you in the long run.

Nat

Perhaps somewhere on the site we should create a site that holds all of the links that compare Perl and PHP, and Perl and Java, and Perl and COBOL, etc and make it node Perl vs. The World so people can just search for that and get the info they want.

I am not familiar with PHP's performance statistics. But one big win PHP has over Perl is, it's easier for designers to deal with "A little bit of code stuck into my html" than it is for them to deal with finding the HTML embedded in a Perl script (especially one that uses the CGI module instead of big print blocks). This is the problem that HTML::Mason tries to solve. Overall HTML::Mason looks like all the benefits of PHP, except you get to work in Perl instead of PHP.

If you're trying to work closely with a designer, or trying to teach a non-programmer how to do a few easy scipting things, PHP is probably the answer. In the long run, it's definitely worth learning Perl, and solving designer interface issues with something like HTML::Mason.

On the other hand everything is Integrated in PHP. Simple mailforms and easier databasehandling is gold with PHP.

--
Casey

Each has its use. I'm thinking of combining Perl and PHP in one project-- PHP for the front end, Perl for the back.

No it doesn't. PHP is a recursive acronym that stands for PHP hypertext pre-processor.

In 16 years things might have changed ...

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}