  At the Hamburger Synchrotronstrahlungslabor Hasylab most experiments are
controlled by the online program Spectra, which runs on Linux PCs. Spectra has
been converted into a Perl module, allowing online programmers to write their
code in Perl. They can take advantage of complex data structures, flow control,
subroutines, OO features, the network interface, etc. In addition, Perl offers
other features that are well suited to make the online functionality of Spectra
(monochromator and diffractometer routines, etc.) available to the programmer.
