Perl/cgi

[...{chris}...]

What are these used for, web programming? Similar to PHP in anyway? Could Perl/CGI be used in place of PHP? Im curious to all of this because its interesting, and my buddy has a book on Perl, but I dont want to bother reading it if its not worth it. Thanks.

[mlseim]

CGI is (Common Gateway Interface) ... a protocol so to speak, not a
language. CGI can be utilized with PHP, Perl, C++, whatever.

Perl is a programming language, like PHP, C++.

Perl can be used instead of PHP and has the main advantage of handling
files and strings with extreme efficiency and complexity. Perl, a much more
"mature" language, preferred to seasoned programmers, more experienced programmers and administrators of servers ... (expecting some flak on this, but I think I'm somewhat correct).

PHP is newer, has typically been associated with MySQL, but Perl can use MySQL just fine. PHP seems to be attractive to younger programmers for some reason, I'm not sure why. It could just be a marketing thing.

I always associate PHP with terms like "cool", "sick", "awesome".

That's my "take" on this issue ... others?

[FishMonger]

mlseim,
We think alike. Perl can do anything and everything that php can but PHP can only do about 1 percent of what Perl can do.