Laughing Otter Computing Services
Perl.
Practical Extraction and Report Language.
Or
Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
(depending on what you're doing and how well that project is currently going.)
In late 1996, I was recruited by a company called ClubLink in
Oahu, Hawaii to take over the website's programming needs. This was my
formal initiation to Internet programming. Over the next three months
I would continually cram every detail I could learn about Perl
into my already-overclocked brain. Fortunately, the learning curve
was not very high and I was not only successful at Perl programming,
but also the standards surrounding HTML 3.0 (which was just migrating to
the 4.0 standards) and JavaScript 1.0. This was about the time where the only
thing Netscape and Internet Explorer could agree upon was to (near-violently)
disagree with one another. As a result, the JavaScript standard nearly
ended up in the trash can (JavaScript vs. JScript), DHTML turned out to be every
developer's nightmare (code for Netscape, code for IE) and the Document Object
Model (DOM) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standards were delayed for about two years.
I use Perl for nearly everything I used to use QBASIC for (and a fair bit besides that!)
I have used Perl to program these applications:
Adult Verification Service (AVS)
Graphical Data and Format Conversion
Insurance Calculations and Referral Service
Basic Website Builder (similar to the GeoCities and Tripod services)
E-Commerce Packages
Mass E-Mail Delivery Systems (with monitoring and crash recovery)
HTML Stripper and Repackager
Mortgage Agent Referrer and Selection Package
Astronomical Planetary Locator and Placidian Astrological Chart Plotter
...but this is by no means a limit to what can be done!...
Live Demos:
Hollywood Book City - Books, Movie Scripts, and TV Scripts Store
Mortgage Agent Referrer and Selection Package (like Lending Tree)
Astrologica (BETA) (planetary position plotter with basic astrological information)