part igetting started with python perl perl was originally an acronym for practical extraction and report language todaypeople simply call it perl and let it go at that howeverperl still shows its roots in that it excels at obtaining data from database and presenting it in report format of courseperl has been extended to do lot more than that -you can use it to write all sorts of applications ( 've even used it for web service application in comparison with pythonyou'll find that python has these advantages over perlsimpler to learn easier to read enhanced protection for data better java integration fewer platform-specific biases