This is the only Perl book that details practical applications that range from enabling cutting-edge research to integrating heterogeneous systems. More and more companies are using Perl as their language of choice for projects great and small in large part because of Perl's popularity among web CGI programmers. Perl's ability to quickly generate and manipulate text files, along with its flexibility in communicating with a variety of systems and platforms, make it indispensable. In many organizations, however, especially those with large-scale programming teams, Perl adopters still fight a daily battle for acceptance. Perl is perceived by the IT managers in these organizations as difficult to manage (because there's no one way to program), impossible to maintain (because deployment does not require compilation), prone to error (because its variables are weakly typed), and maybe even dangerous (because hackers use it). Applied Perl tackles these misperceptions through exploring cases where Perl is being applied inventively in the film industry, financial community, Internet community and scientific community. The book teaches new techniques to advanced Perl programmers and provides sample code and applications that can be customized. In addition it is an advocacy book that shows the power of the Perl language in tangible terms.