http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1067528

venky4289 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi, Can anyone list out how many types of perl interpreters are there ?

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Re: Perl Interpreters
by dcmertens (Scribe) on Dec 17, 2013 at 21:15 UTC
    Ignoring different versions of Perl for the moment, I only know of two (maybe three) Perl5 interpreters, though there may be others. The canonical "perl" binary is what you should generally expect to use. In addition, we have Perlito, which converts Perl5 (and Perl6) into Javascript, among other things. Finally, there's perl11, which is supposed to be a lot faster than the original perl because it eschews some of Perl's magic and uses a different virtual machine.
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Re: Perl Interpreters
by LanX (Saint) on Dec 17, 2013 at 23:59 UTC
    > Hi, Can anyone list out how many types of perl interpreters are there ?

    None!

    ... just experiments on different degrees of incompleteness... xD

    The most popular is just called Perl, latest released version 5.18.

    Others can be found listed on that webpage:

    http://perl11.org/

    HTH!

    Cheers Rolf

    ( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

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Re: Perl Interpreters
by greengaroo (Hermit) on Dec 17, 2013 at 21:27 UTC

    There is also ActivePerl and Strawberry Perl, both for Windows.

    A for will get you from A to Z; a while will get you everywhere.
    -- greengaroo
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      True, but those are just ports of the original "perl" binary (originally written for Unixen). Indeed, their codebase is part of the codebase of the original "perl" binary. They are not distinct interpreters in the way the Perlito and perl11 are.
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        Thanks for clarifying. Now, I imagine they had to recompile the interpreter for Windows, leading to possible differences in certain behaviours, is that possible?

        A for will get you from A to Z; a while will get you everywhere.
        -- greengaroo
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Re: Perl Interpreters
by raiph (Deacon) on Dec 20, 2013 at 03:13 UTC
    I think most monks would agree that there's only one interpreter/compiler that unarguably deserves to be included in a list, namely the standard perl binary stewarded by P5P.

    Perhaps because I see things thru P6 colored spectacles, I think the nascent v5 is promising. v5 is a Perl 5 interpreter/compiler project led by FROGGS. Architecturally it's a P6 slang ("sub-language") and relies on the NQP compiler toolchain project originally written to support Rakudo P6 but in principle a user doesn't even have to know it involves P6. It's gotten a quick start by stealing from the Perl 5 grammar STD_P5 written (in P6) by Larry Wall.

    »ö« . o O ( "the celebrity tell-all of the Perl-6 cult?" )

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      Nascent means it passes 13% of the language tests and none of the module tests? Even by your standards ralph that's a poor showing!
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