http://www.wkonline.com/d/Perl.html

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

awk

   1. <tool, language> (Named from the authors' initials) An
   interpreted language included with many versions of Unix for
   massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger,
   and Brian Kernighan in 1978.  It is characterised by C-like
   syntax, declaration-free variables, associative arrays, and
   field-oriented text processing.

   There is a GNU version called gawk and other varients
   including bawk, mawk, nawk, tawk.  Perl was inspired
   in part by awk but is much more powerful.

   Unix manual page: awk(1).

   netlib WWW.  netlib
   FTP.

   ["The AWK Programming Language" A. Aho, B. Kernighan,
   P. Weinberger, A-W 1988].




Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

Perl

   <language, tool> A high-level programming language, started
   by Larry Wall in 1987 and developed as an open source
   project.  It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from the
   ubiquitous C programming language and to a lesser extent
   from sed, awk, various Unix shell languages, Lisp,
   and at least a dozen other tools and languages.  Originally
   developed for Unix, it is now available for many
   platforms.

   Perl's elaborate support for regular expression matching and
   substitution has made it the language of choice for tasks
   involving string manipulation, whether for text or binary
   data.  It is particularly popular for writing CGI scripts.

   The language's highly flexible syntax and concise regular
   expression operators, make densely written Perl code
   indecipherable to the uninitiated.  The syntax is, however,
   really quite simple and powerful and, once the basics have
   been mastered, a joy to write.

   Perl's only primitive data type is the "scalar", which can
   hold a number, a string, the undefined value, or a typed
   reference.  Perl's aggregate data types are arrays, which
   are ordered lists of scalars indexed by natural numbers,
   and hashes (or "associative arrays") which are unordered
   lists of scalars indexed by strings.  A reference can point to
   a scalar, array, hash, function, or filehandle.  Objects
   are implemented as references "blessed" with a class name.
   Strings in Perl are eight-bit clean, including nulls, and
   so can contain binary data.

   Unlike C but like most Lisp dialects, Perl internally and
   dynamically handles all memory allocation, garbage
   collection, and type coercion.

   Perl supports closures, recursive functions, symbols
   with either lexical scope or dynamic scope, nested data
   structures of arbitrary content and complexity (as lists or
   hashes of references), and packages (which can serve as
   classes, optionally inheriting methods from one or more
   other classes).  There is ongoing work on threads,
   Unicode, exceptions, and backtracking.  Perl program
   files can contain embedded documentation in POD (Plain Old
   Documentation), a simple markup language.

   The normal Perl distribution contains documentation for the
   language, as well as over a hundred modules (program
   libraries).  Hundreds more are available from The
   Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.  Modules are themselves
   generally written in Perl, but can be implemented as
   interfaces to code in other languages, typically compiled C.

   The free availability of modules for almost any conceivable
   task, as well as the fact that Perl offers direct access to
   almost all system calls and places no arbitrary limits on
   data structure size or complexity, has led some to describe
   Perl, in a parody of a famous remark about lex, as the
   "Swiss Army chainsaw" of programming.

   The use of Perl has grown significantly since its adoption as
   the language of choice of many World-Wide Web developers.
   CGI interfaces and libraries for Perl exist for several
   platforms and Perl's speed and flexibility make it well
   suited for form processing and on-the-fly web page creation.

   Perl programs are generally stored as text source files,
   which are compiled into virtual machine code at run time;
   this, in combination with its rich variety of data types and
   its common use as a glue language, makes Perl somewhat hard to
   classify as either a "scripting language" or an
   "applications language" -- see Ousterhout's dichotomy.
   Perl programs are usually called "Perl scripts", if only for
   historical reasons.

   Version 5 was a major rewrite and enhancement of version 4,
   released sometime before November 1993.  It added real data
   structures by way of "references", un-adorned subroutine
   calls, and method inheritance.

   The spelling "Perl" is preferred over the older "PERL" (even
   though some explain the language's name as originating in the
   acronym for "Practical Extraction and Report Language").  The
   program that interprets/compiles Perl code is called
   "perl", typically "/usr/local/bin/perl" or "/usr/bin/perl".

   Current version: 5.005_03 stable, 5.005_62 in development, as
   of 1999-12-04.

   Home.

   Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.lang.perl.announce,
   news:comp.lang.perl.misc.

   ["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz,
   O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.  Sebastopol, CA.  ISBN
   0-93715-64-1].

   ["Learning Perl" by Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates,
   Inc., Sebastopol, CA].

   [Jargon File]

   (1999-12-04)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

Python

   1. <language> A simple, high-level interpreted language by
   Guido van Rossum <guido@cwi.nl>, 1991.  Python combines ideas
   from ABC, C, Modula-3 and Icon.  It bridges the gap
   between C and shell programming, making it suitable for
   rapid prototyping or as an extension language for C
   applications.  It is object-oriented and supports packages,
   modules, classes, user-defined exceptions, a good C
   interface, dynamic loading of C modules and has no arbitrary
   restrictions.

   Python is available, among others, for Unix, Windows,
   DOS, OS/2, Macintosh, and Amoeba.

   Current version: 1.4, includes interpreter, libraries, and
   documentation.

   Home.

   Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.python.

   2.  A compiler for CMU Common LISP.  Python is
   more sophisticated than other Common Lisp compilers.  It
   produces better code and is easier to use.  The programming
   environment based on the Hemlock editor is better integrated
   than GNU Emacs based environments.

   (1997-02-27)


Source: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) 

Python /pi:'thon/ In the words of its author, "the other scripting
   language" (other than Perl, that is). Python's design is notably
   clean, elegant, and well thought through; it tends to attract the sort
   of programmers who find Perl grubby and exiguous. Python's relationship
   with Perl is rather like the BSD community's relationship to Linux -
   it's the smaller party in a (usually friendly) rivalry, but the average
   quality of its developers is generally conceded to be rather higher than
   in the larger community it competes with. There's a Python resource page
   at `http://www.python.org'. See also Guido.




Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

C

   <language> A programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie
   at AT&T Bell Labs ca. 1972 for systems programming on the
   PDP-11 and immediately used to reimplement Unix.

   It was called "C" because many features derived from an
   earlier compiler named "B".  In fact, C was briefly named
   "NB".  B was itself strongly influenced by BCPL.  Before
   Bjarne Stroustrup settled the question by designing C++,
   there was a humorous debate over whether C's successor should
   be named "D" or "P" (following B and C in "BCPL").

   C is terse, low-level and permissive.  It has a macro
   preprocessor, cpp.

   Partly due to its distribution with Unix, C became immensely
   popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the
   dominant language in systems and microcomputer applications
   programming.  It has grown popular due to its simplicity,
   efficiency, and flexibility.  C programs are often easily
   adapted to new environments.

   C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain,
   as "a language that combines all the elegance and power of
   assembly language with all the readability and
   maintainability of assembly language".

   Ritchie's original C, known as K&R C after Kernighan and
   Ritchie's book, has been standardised (and simultaneously
   modified) as ANSI C.

   See also ACCU, ae, c68, c386, C-Interp, cxref,
   dbx, dsp56k-gcc, dsp56165-gcc, gc, GCT, GNU C,
   GNU superoptimiser, Harvest C, malloc, mpl,
   Pthreads, ups.

   [Jargon File]

   (1996-06-01)


C++

   <language> One of the most used object-oriented languages, a
   superset of C developed primarily by Bjarne Stroustrup
   <bs@alice.att.com> at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1986.

   In C++ a class is a user-defined type, syntactically a
   struct with member functions.  Constructors and
   destructors are member functions called to create or destroy
   instances.  A friend is a nonmember function that is
   allowed to access the private portion of a class.  C++ allows
   implicit type conversion, function inlining, overloading
   of operators and function names, and default function
   arguments.  It has streams for I/O and references.

   C++ 2.0 (May 1989) introduced multiple inheritance,
   type-safe linkage, pointers to members, and abstract
   classes.

   C++ 2.1 was introduced in ["Annotated C++ Reference Manual",
   B. Stroustrup et al, A-W 1990].

   MS-DOS,
   Unix ANSI C++ - X3J16
   committee. (They're workin' on it).

   See also cfront, LEDA, uC++.

   Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.c++.

   ["The C++ Programming Language", Bjarne Stroustrup, A-W,
   1986].

   (1996-06-06)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

JavaScript

   <language> (Formerly LiveScript) Netscape's simple,
   cross-platform, World-Wide Web scripting language, only
   very vaguely related to Java.  JavaScript is intimately tied
   to the World-Wide Web, and currently runs in only three
   environments - as a server-side scripting language, as an
   embedded language in server-parsed HTML, and as an embedded
   language run in browsers.

   JavaScript may end up being more popular and entrenched than
   Java, due to the current (May 1997) prevalence of its
   primary platform (see below), and its ease of learning.  It
   has a simplified C-like syntax.  Its functionality is
   currently limited, being aimed primarily at enhanced forms,
   simple web database front-ends and navigation
   enhancements.

   JavaScript originated from Netscape, and for a time, only
   Netscape products supported it.  Microsoft now supports
   it, but as a "work-a-like" called JScript.  The resulting
   inconsistencies make it difficult to write JavaScript that
   behaves the same in both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft
   Internet Explorer.  This could be attributed to the slow
   progress of JavaScript through the standards bodies.

   JavaScript runs "100x" slower than C, as it is purely
   interpreted (Java runs "10x" slower than C code).
   Netscape and allies say JavaScript is an "open standard" in
   an effort to keep Microsoft from monopolising web software
   as they have desktop software.  Netscape and Sun have
   co-operated to enable Java and JavaScript to exchange
   messages and data.

   JavaScript should not be confused with Java.  JavaScript is
   a Sun trademark.

   See also VBScript.

   Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.javascript.

   Mailing List: <majordomo@obscure.org> ("subscribe javascript"
   in body).

   (2001-04-24)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

Java

   <World-Wide Web, language> (After the Indonesian island, a
   source of programming fluid) A simple, object-oriented,
   distributed, interpreted, robust, secure,
   architecture-neutral, portable, multithreaded, dynamic,
   buzzword-compliant, general-purpose programming language
   developed by Sun Microsystems in 1995(?).  Java supports
   programming for the Internet in the form of
   platform-independent Java "applets".

   Java is similar to C++ without operator overloading
   (though it does have method overloading), without multiple
   inheritance, and extensive automatic coercions.  It has
   automatic garbage collection.

   Java programs can run stand-alone on small computers.  The
   interpreter and class support take about 40 kilobytes;
   adding the standard libraries and thread support
   (essentially a self-contained microkernel) adds an
   additional 175Kb.

   Java extends C++'s object-oriented facilities with those
   of Objective C for dynamic method resolution.

   Java has an extensive library of routines for TCP/IP
   protocols like HTTP and FTP.  Java applications can
   access objects across the Internet via URLs as easily as
   on the local file system.

   The Java compiler and linker both enforce strong type
   checking - procedures must be explicitly typed.  Java
   supports the creation of virus-free, tamper-free systems
   with authentication based on public-key encryption.

   The Java compiler generates an architecture-neutral object
   file executable on any processor supporting the Java run-time
   system.  The object code consists of bytecode instructions
   designed to be both easy to interpret on any machine and
   easily translated into native machine code at load time.

   The Java libraries provide portable interfaces.  For example,
   there is an abstract Window class and implementations of it
   for Unix, Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh.  The
   run-time system is written in POSIX-compliant ANSI C.  Java
   applets can be executed as attachments in World-Wide Web
   documents using either Sun's HotJava browser or Netscape
   Navigator version 2.0.

   Home

   Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.java.

   E-mail: <java@java.sun.com>.

   (1995-12-06)


Source: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) 

Java An object-oriented language originally developed at Sun by James
   Gosling (and known by the name "Oak") with the intention of being the
   successor to C++ (the project was however originally sold to Sun as an
   embedded language for use in set-top boxes). After the great Internet
   explosion of 1993-1994, Java was hacked into a byte-interpreted language
   and became the focus of a relentless hype campaign by Sun, which touted
   it as the new language of choice for distributed applications.

   Java is indeed a stronger and cleaner design than C++ and has been
   embraced by many in the hacker community - but it has been a
   considerable source of frustration to many others, for reasons ranging
   from uneven support on different Web browser platforms, performance
   issues, and some notorious deficiencies in some of the standard toolkits
   (AWT in particular). Microsoft's determined attempts to corrupt the
   language (which it rightly sees as a threat to its OS monopoly) have not
   helped. As of 2001, these issues are still in the process of being
   resolved.

   Despite many attractive features and a good design, it is difficult to
   find people willing to praise Java who have tried to implement a
   complex, real-world system with it (but to be fair it is early days yet,
   and no other language has ever been forced to spend its childhood under
   the limelight the way Java has). On the other hand, Java has already
   been a big win in academic circles, where it has taken the place of
   Pascal as the preferred tool for teaching the basics of good
   programming to the next generation of hackers.

bash

   Bourne Again SHell.  GNU's command interpreter for Unix.
   Bash is a Posix-compatible shell with full Bourne shell
   syntax, and some C shell commands built in.  The Bourne
   Again Shell supports Emacs-style command-line editing, job
   control, functions, and on-line help.  Written by Brian Fox of
   UCSB.

   The latest version is 1.14.1.  It includes a yacc parser,
   the interpreter and documentation.

   ftp://ftp.gnu.org/bash-1.14.1.tar.gz or from a
   GNU archive site.  E-mail: <<a href="mailto:bug-bash@gnu.org">bug-bash@gnu.org>.
   Usenet newsgroup: news:gnu.bash.bug.

   (1994-07-15)


Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

BASIC

   <language> Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

   A simple language designed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas
   E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963.  It first ran on an
   IBM 704 on 1964-05-01.  It was designed for quick and easy
   programming by students and beginners.  BASIC exists in many
   dialects, and is popular on microcomputers with sound and
   graphics support.  Most micro versions are interactive and
   interpreted, but the original Dartmouth BASIC was compiled.

   BASIC was originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental
   time-sharing system and has since become the leading cause
   of brain-damage in proto-hackers.  This is another case (like
   Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a
   language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets
   taken too seriously.  A novice can write short BASIC programs
   (on the order of 10--20 lines) very easily; writing anything
   longer is (a) very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that
   will make it harder to use more powerful languages well.  This
   wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC
   so common on low-end micros.  As it is, it ruins thousands of
   potential wizards a year.

   Originally, all references to code, both GOTO and GOSUB
   (subroutine call) referred to the destination by its line
   number.  This allowed for very simple editing in the days
   before text editors were considered an essential tool on
   every computer.  Just typing the line number deleted the line
   and to edit a line you just typed the new line with the same
   number.  Programs were typically numbered in steps of ten to
   allow for insertions.  Later versions, such as BASIC V,
   allow GOTO-less structured programming with named
   procedures and functions, IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF constructs and
   WHILE loops etc.

   Early BASICs had no graphic operations except with graphic
   characters.  In the 1970s BASIC interpreters became standard
   features in mainframes and minicomputers.  Some versions
   included matrix operations as language primitives.

   A public domain interpreter for a mixture of DEC's
   MU-Basic and Microsoft Basic is here.
   A yacc parser and interpreter were in the
   comp.sources.unix archives volume 2.

   See also ANSI Minimal BASIC, bournebasic, bwBASIC,
   ubasic.

   [Jargon File]

   (1995-03-15)


Source: V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms December 2001 

BASIC
        Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code


Source: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) 

BASIC /bay'-sic/ n. A programming language, originally designed for
   Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which
   for many years was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers.
   Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected Writings on Computing: A
   Personal Perspective" that "It is practically impossible to teach good
   programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as
   potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
   regeneration." This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading
   lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an
   educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC
   programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything
   longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make
   it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad
   if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros in
   the 1980s. As it is, it probably ruined tens of thousands of potential
   wizards.

   [1995: Some languages called `BASIC' aren't quite this nasty any more,
   having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control structures and
   shed their line numbers. --ESR]

   BASIC stands for "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code".
   Earlier versions of this entry claiming this was a later backronym
   were incorrect.

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

Visual BASIC

   <language> (VB) A popular event-driven visual programming
   system from Microsoft Corporation for Microsoft Windows.
   VB is good for developing Windows interfaces, it invokes
   fragments of BASIC code when the user performs certain
   operations on graphical objects on-screen.  It is widely used
   for in-house application program development and for
   prototyping.  It can also be used to create ActiveX and
   COM components.

   Version 1 was released in 1991 [by Microsoft?].

   Current version: 6, as of 1999-11-26.

   Home.
   History.
   Strollo Software.
   Books.

   (1999-11-26)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (09 FEB 02) 

LiveScript

   JavaScript


http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=ruby

3. A fully object oriented interpreted scripting language by Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@netlab.co.jp>. 

Similar in scope to Perl and Python, Ruby has high-level data types, automatic memory management, dynamic typing, a module system, exceptions, and a rich standard library. Other features are CLU-style iterators for loop abstraction, singleton classes/methods and lexical closures. 

In Ruby, everything is an object, including the basic data types. For example, the number 1 is an instance of class Fixnum. 

Current version (stable): 1.6.7, as of 2002-03-01. 

Ruby Home. 

Ruby Central. 

["Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide", David Thomas, Andrew Hunt, Yukihiro Matsumoto pub. Addison Wesley 2000]. 

(2002-06-19) 


http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=c-sharp

C sharp ==>
C#
<language> /see sharp/ An object-oriented language devised and promoted by Microsoft, intended to replace Java, which it strongly resembles. 

http://csharpindex.com/. 

(2001-10-04) 


http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=php

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
<World-Wide Web, programming> (PHP) A server-side, cross-platform, HTML-embedded scripting language used to create dynamic web pages. PHP is Open Source software. 

PHP Home. 

[Features?] 

(2002-01-03) 


Try this search on OneLook / Google

gawk
<tool, language> GNU awk. Gawk is a superset of standard awk and includes some Plan 9 features. 

David Trueman and Arnold Robbins of Georgia Institute of Technology were developing it in 1993. It has been ported to Unix, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Archimedes. 

Latest version: 2.15.3, as of 1993-11-08. 

Available by FTP from your nearest GNU archive site. 

Mac version. 

(2000-10-21)