General Introduction about Perl:
Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development, and more.
The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal). Its major features include support for multiple programming paradigms (procedural, object-oriented, and functional styles), automatic memory management, built-in support for text processing, and a large collection of third-party modules.
Perl is procedural in nature, with variables, expressions, assignment statements, brace-delimited code blocks, control structures, and subroutines.
Most Common Uses of Perl:
1. Guestbook
2. Counters
3. Feedback forms
4. Custom homepages
5. Login and passwords
6. Message boards and many more..
Perl Vs. Java:
Clear comparison can be found in the below mentioned site link.
Python vs. Perl vs. Java vs. C++ Runtimes