25 Years of Perl

[Dave Cross]

Quoting Chris Benson <chrisb at ccandc.org>:

> On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 05:29:29PM +0000, Dave Cross wrote:
>>
>> 1/ Technical
>>
>> What CPAN modules deserve to be mentioned as part of Perl's history?
>> Which Perl infrastructure projects are (or were) important? Are
>> there any other technical things that need to be covered?
>
> Back before there were modules: the earliest version I used (3.something)
> came with *2p utilities that were useful in their own right and enabled
> bootstrapping knowledge from find, sed and especially in my case awk:
> 	http://code.activestate.com/lists/perl-advocacy/1671/
> If a2p hadn't existed (and installed right alongside perl) I'm not sure
> whether I'd have started using Perl.

Weren't those utilities only removed from Perl in the last couple of years?

> I think the early days of comp.lang.perl (before the split) with informed,
> entertaining & helpful commentary from some of stalwarts was also key
> in the rise of Perl.

Yeah! I've already tracked down the first posting to comp.lang.perl.

Finding it harder to trace the history of #perl though. Can anyone  
help out there? Even if it's just an idea of when it first started.

Oh, and when was irc.perl.org set up?

Dave...