Why is Perl sometimes written PERL?
Perl is sometimes written in all-caps due to an oddity in its history. When the first definitive documentation for Perl was published by O'Reilly & Associates, sometimes referred to as the camel book, the name "Perl" was (and still is) written in capital letters on its cover and binder. Once you actually opened and read the book, Perl was no longer printed in all-caps but since many Perl developers had the book nearby as a reference and were seeing the cover every day, the association between Perl and PERL became ingrained.
last updated 2007.09.24
