http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=684935

spearfish has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hey all,

I've been finding that a lot, I mean a lot of employers in the web-engineering business want you to know some Perl. So, I figured, why not learn a bit of it?

I've successfully yelled, "Hello world!" and looked at some Perl syntax. It looks a lot like PHP, a language whose basics I know.

I do, however, have 2 questions.

1) What can Perl do that PHP can't do? I've read threads on this site comparing the two, but all I've seen is that Perl can do more. But what is this magical stuff?

2) Compiling to .exe.... what happens if I just print something with the executable (print "hello")? How do I compile to a chinsy, good looking, GUI app?

Thanks for your help,
-Spear


Update: Thanks a lot. This has cleared some things up for me =)