Perl

What is Perl, really?

Perl was the king of web scripting in the 1990s and is still hiding behind countless legacy systems. Banks, telecom companies, and government systems often still run Perl scripts written decades ago that nobody wants to rewrite.

Why learn it in 2026?

Pure maintenance work for legacy enterprise systems. Some banking and telecom firms in India pay well for Perl maintenance simply because no young developers want to learn it. Niche but stable.

What it looks like

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Find email addresses in a file
while (<>) {
    while (/[\w.]+\@[\w.]+/g) {
        print "$&\n";
    }
}

▶ Try this code live →

What you can build with it

• Legacy system maintenance
• Text processing
• System administration
• Bioinformatics

Major apps using Perl

These are real platforms with public engineering posts confirming they use Perl in production:

How to get started with Perl in 5 steps

1. Install Perl Download Perl from the official site or use a package manager like Homebrew (Mac) or apt (Linux).
2. Set up your editor Install VS Code (free) and add the official Perl extension for syntax highlighting and autocomplete.
3. Write Hello World Create a file, write your first 'Perl Hello World' program, and run it from the terminal.
4. Build a small project Pick something tiny — a calculator, a to-do list, a number guessing game. Building beats reading.
5. Join a community Join the official Perl Discord, subreddit, or Stack Overflow tag. Ask questions when stuck.

Should you learn it first?

Only if your specific goal needs it. Perl serves a clear purpose but is not the broad starting point. Make sure you have a project in mind before committing.

Frequently Asked Questions about Perl

Sources & References

Salary ranges, popularity data, and tech stack information on this page were verified using:

• Official Perl documentation — Primary language reference and getting started guides
• Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 — Salary, popularity, and trend data
• GitHub Octoverse 2025 Report — Most-used languages and growth trends
• Naukri.com & LinkedIn India job listings — India salary verification (Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune)
• OneCity internal hiring data (2020–2026) — 650+ client projects across web, mobile, and AI work

Last verified: April 26, 2026. See an error? Email hello@onecity.co.in and we will fix it.