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 GBIC >> Perl >> History

History
The first version of Perl was released by Larry Wall in October of 1987. Since then, releases have generally come out about once a year. Version 5.8.8 is the latest release.

Perl Timeline

Here is a brief list of the many dates and event that make up Perl's history:

  • 1987 - Perl 1.0 by Larry Wall
  • 1988 - Perl 2.0
  • 1989 - Perl 3.0, GNU Protection License
  • 1991 - Perl 4.0, Programming Perl book by Larry Wall and Randal Schwartz
  • 1992 - MacPerl 4.0.2
  • 1993 - Perl 4.036, Learning Perl book
  • 1994 - Perl 5, DBI interface to databases, including Oracle
  • 1995 - CPAN repository, MacPerl 5.0.0, www.perl.com
  • 1996 - Programming Perl (2nd Ed.), The Perl Institute, The Perl Journal
  • 1997 - First Perl Conference, in San Jose, Learning Perl (2nd Ed)
  • 1998 - Perl Mongers special interest group, 2nd Perl Conference
  • 1998 - Free SW Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free SW to Larry Wall
  • 1998 - CPAN gets its 100th mirror site
  • 1999 - ActiveState Tool Corp arrives, The Perl Institute dissolves
  • 2000 - Perl 5.6, then 5.7 Perl now supports Unicode.
  • 2002 - Perl 5.8
  • 2006 - Perl 5.8.8

The Perl community has been working on a Version 6 for several years. It's release date is still unknown.

Other Timelines

  • Elaine Ashton
    an extensive timeline of Perl's history, with surrounding events thrown in for good measure