From:	Mark A. Imbriaco mark.imbriaco@*****.com
Subject:	[semi-OT] programming languages' evolution
Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1999 23:09:16 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999, Ojaste,James [NCR] wrote:

> > Perl compiled then interpreted, libraries, shared, high-level, pseudo-OO
> >
> > Can't forget that one. :-)
> >
> Doh! Didn't mean to... I intended specifically to include that.
> *sigh*
>
> I'm not entirely convinced that Perl is high-level. It allows you to
> do all sorts of wonky stuff, but it also allows you to do lots of
> lower-level stuff.

I think the same could be said about any language that is a "high level"
language.

> Perl is also *both* compiled and interpreted, though not in series
> (I'm counting Pcode as interpreted, but Perl2C counts as compiling).

It is indeed in series. When you invoke the standard perl "compiler"
(read: binary) it compiles into pcode which is then interpreted. There
are also the new compiler backends that turn the pcode into other things,
but since they're not very stable yet I tend to leave them out of
practical discussions.

-Mark