pearl

adj : relating to or resembling or made of or adorned with pearls

or mother-of-pearl; "a pearl-handled knife"

n 1: a smooth lustrous round structure inside the shell of a clam

or oyster; much valued as a jewel

2: a shade of white the color of bleached bones [syn: {bone}, {ivory},

{off-white}]

3: a shape that is small and round; "he studied the shapes of

low-viscosity drops"; "beads of sweat on his forehead"

[syn: {drop}, {bead}]

v : gather pearls, from oysters in the ocean

PEARL

1. A language for {constructive

mathematics} developed by Constable at {Cornell University} in

the 1980s.

2. {Process and Experiment Automation

Real-Time Language}.

3. One of five pedagogical languages

based on {Markov} {algorithms}, used in "Nonpareil, a Machine

Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of

Semantics", B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London

(1968). Compare {Brilliant}, {Diamond}, {Nonpareil}, {Ruby}.

4. A multilevel language developed by Brian Randell

ca 1970 and mentioned in "Machine Oriented Higher Level

Languages", W. van der Poel, N-H 1974.

5. An obsolete term for {Larry

Wall}'s {PERL} programming language, which never fell into

common usage other than in typographical errors. The missing

'a' remains as an atrophied remnant in the expansion

"Practical Extraction and Report Language".

["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz,

O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN

0-93715-64-1].

(2000-08-16)