From APUE

Foreword

• Computer technology has changed greatly since the early 1970s, most notably in universal networking, ubiquitous graphics, and readily available personal computing, but the system has somehow managed to accommodate all of these phenomena.
  • somehow
  • managed to
  • accommodate
• As it happened, Unix was able to adapt rather gracefully to a networked environment and, perhaps less elegantly, but still adequately, to a graphical one.
• However, the first edition of this book was published before Linux and the several open-source renditions of the Unix interface that stemmed from the Berkeley CSRG became widespread, ...
• Steve Rago has carefully updated this book to account for the technology changes, as well as ...
• Rich Stevens was a friend who always conducted himself as a gentleman.
• As was his nature, Rich gladly reviewed chapters for me, and treated me not as a competitor, but as a colleague.
• Had events been different, we might have actually done it, but ...
  • 假設語氣倒裝，與現在事實相反
• Rich's work holds up well.

• If pathconf indicates that PATH_MAX is indeterminate, we have to punt and just guess a value.

From Llama (Learning Perl)

Overview

• Since then, Perl has blossomed into a full-featured programming language used for web programming, database manipulation, XML processing, and system administration

  -- on practically all platforms -- while remaining the favorite tool for the small daily tasks it was designed for.

  • blossom into ... 發展成... (原 blossom 為「花」 (n.)、「開花」(v.)
  • while remaining ... 而且仍是... (挺常這樣連用)

Preface

• In the pages that follow, you'll find a carefully paced introduction to the language that is the workhorse of the Internet, as well as ...
  • carefully paced 小心調配的步調的
  • workhorse 勞役馬、做重活的人、負荷重的機器(或車輛)
• The books that promise this are probably fibbing a bit.
  • fib 撒小謊 (v.) 小謊;無傷大雅的謊言 (n.)

History of This Book

• We've been waiting for you to pitch a second book - Programming Perl is selling like gangbusters.
  • selling like gangbusters 賣得很好的意思 (?) ，gangbusters: 掃蕩流氓組織的執法人員
• The first edition hit the streets on the first day of November 1993 and became a smashing success, frequently even outpacing Programming Perl book sales.
  • hit the streets 賣得很好的意思 (?)
  • smashing 猛烈的、非凡的
• The back-cover jacket of the first book said "written by a leading Perl trainer." Well, that became a self-fulfilling prophesy.
  • prophesy 預言,預告
• I had personally racked up (literally) a million frequent-flier miles.
  • racked up: 得分;累計、傷害
  • literally: 不加誇張地

Chap 1. Introduction

1.2.1. Why Did Larry Create Perl?

• Larry created Perl in the mid-1980s when he wanted to produce some reports from a Usenet news-like hierarchy of files for a bug-reporting system, and awk ran out of steam.
  • run out of steam: 精疲力竭;沒有精力 (steam: 蒸汽、氣力)

1.2.2. Why Didn't Larry Just Use Some Other Language?

• Perl fills the gap between low-level programming (such as in C or C++ or assembly) and high-level programming (such as "shell" programming).
  • fill the gap between .. and ... 填補差距空隙