Larry Wall has started job over Perl in 1987, working as the programmer over Unisys, and has released version 1.0 to comp.sources.misc teleconferences on December, 18th, 1987. Language has extended fast for the following some years. Perl 2, released in 1988, has shown the best regular engine of expression. Perl 3, released in 1989, has additional functions, in particular support of streams of binary information.



Originally the unique documentation for Perl was a single of page of the person. In 1991 Programming perl (known to many programmers Perl as "the Book of the Camel") has been published and became the actual link for language. At the same time version number Perl has been struck to 4, that did not mark the main change in language, but identified the version which has been registered according to the book.

Perl 4 there has passed a number of releases of the service reaching the higher points in Perl 4.036 in 1993. That year Wall has left Perl 4 to start job over Perl 5.

Initial project Perl 5 was generated in 1994. The list of targets of perl5-Swisses has been installed in May, 1994 for the purpose of job coordination over transferring Perl 5 to various platforms. It remains a primary forum for development, service and transferring Perl 5.

On October, 17th, 1994 has been released Perl 5. It was almost completely copying of the translator, and had many new features, including objects, links, lexical variables and units. Important, units have provided the mechanism of the extension of language, not changing thus a translator. It has allowed the main translator to be stabilised, just when it has allowed usual programmers Perl to add new language features.

For 2008 statistical data confirm that Perl 5 is still actively supported. The important features and some essential new language constructions have been added on path, including support Unicode, the threads, the improved support of the object and many other things rises.

On December, 18th, 2007 20th anniversary Perl 1.0 has taken place, Perl 5.10.0 has been released. Perl 5.10.0 switches on known new features which approximate it to Perl 6, among them the new statement of the switch (named to "data/when"), regular upgrades of expressions, "the clever operator of competition", etc.

One of the most important events in Perl 5 histories took place outside of appropriate language, and were a consequence of its support of the unit. On October, 26th 1995, the All-round Network of Archive Perl (CPAN) has been installed as a warehouse for Perl units and Perl is direct. During the letter it transfers 13 500 units more than 6 500 authors. CPAN it is widely regarded as one of the greatest forces Perl practically.