According to "Programming Perl", Preface:
"Unlike a strictly interpreted language such as the shell, which
compiles and executes a script at one command at a time, Perl first
compiles your whole program quickly into an intermediate format. Like
any other compiler, it performs various optimizations... Once Perl´s
compiler frontend is happy with your program, it passes off the
intermediate code to the interpreter to execute..."
mfg Frank Finner
On 14-Dec-01 Darren Ferguson sat down, thought for a long time and then
wrote:
> Perl is an interpreted language. It does not convert into byte code.
>
> It is scanned each time you can it so the interpreter has to go
> through
> everything line by line.
--
Frank Finner
And now there is no turning back at all.
(M. Moorcock, "Elric Of Melnibone")"