Learning Perl and Stuff was .... Re: Difference of $hash, and %hash. (was Getting my head round hashes)

[drieux]

On Friday, Jun 6, 2003, at 10:04 US/Pacific, Greenhalgh David wrote:

p0: I must confess myself to be a 'perl purist'[1] in
the sense that my stained copy of the first edition
of perl is as trashed as my copy of Sed and Awk.
So I come to the discussion having asked,

	"I want to cut over to perl5 for what reason?"

Since I had crawled up the learning curve the old fashion way,

        Beating My Head Against the WALL
                until the information sunk in....
p1: you will want to become friends with

	perldoc perl

which will give you the inventory of the available online
documentation about perl, and pay attention to
        perldoc perlboot
                        perltoot
                        perltootc
                        perlobj
                        perlbot
for the stock snappy intro to basic OO-ing in perl.

p2: once upon a time, a long, long, long time ago, there
was not good perldoc, and the world was dark, and filled
with BatWingedSpawnsOfSatanFromTheDeepistPitsOfGehenna that
ate young coders and spit out their bones....
[..]
 My /real/ problem is that object oriented code is a foreign language.
p3: At the risk of igniting a HolyWar, one of the advantages you
gain from playing in Perl5 is that you can swing either way. So
that you understand, when I use the token 'method' - it is more
in line with 'method in my madness' than the OO token. If you look
at some of the cooler perl modules, they allow them to be used as
both 'methods', in the OO sense, or as 'functions' in the functionalist 
sense.

In my current project I have modules that are OO'd, because the
data said, "Yeah I am Objectionable....", so I Objected...
{ the voices in my head make me write it that way.... }
I have other modules that are dull boring pedantic pedstrian stacks
of functions without a new to bless an object. Because I just needed
to stack some common functions in a common place and find them...
p4: Scott and Andrew have offered the usual Suspects, although I
will have to see this with
	'Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules'

when it comes out - having Bashed my head against merely
the 'perldoc' for such things.
My job is with microwave comms hardware and I have no need to do
software at all, so an explanation which is plain as day to people
who speak the language is far from that to a raw beginner like me.
[..]

There is also the additional fun, namely that in the CGI space
you need to understand not MERELY the basics of 'perl stuff' but
also the other bits and bobs about 'html' and 'http' - depending
upon your level of psychosis - and most likely a bit of Javascripting,
since, well, there are things that should just be resolved on the
browser side of the line BEFORE they come back to the server.
So on top of the other section I include the obligatory

        Programming Perl - 3rd Edition -
ISBN: 0-596-00027-8
                { just buy it! Read it based upon what you found in
                        the index in the back, then check the perldoc to see
                        if some things have changed and/or 'best practices' notes
                        show up that help explain things better... }
        Perl 5 pocket reference
ISBN: 0-596-00032-4
                { because if you have a life, sometimes it's less important
                        to retain all the syntactic goo for RegEx, et al, than
                        things like your name, home address, phone number. And
                        it's embarrassing to get carpal tunnel pulling the 3rd Edition
                        out all the time... }
        Dynamic HTML - the Definitive Reference - Nth Edition
ISBN:0-596-00316-1
                { it would have been nice to have One DOM to rule them all,
                        but this is the 'real world' or as close as we'll get,
                                so own the dictionary, look up the words... }
        JavaScript - The Definitive Guide - Nth Edition
ISBN: 0-596-00048-0
                { op cit, Frodo did not get to Mordor, deal with it... }
Technically you are not obliged to have read the full works of
J.R.R. Tolkien, you can crib with reading 'bored of the rings'.
But you should read everything by Chomsky, C.S. Lewis, and most
importantly all the back issues of Mad Magazine...
Then you will understand the mental stains that programmers
use to emmulate human conversation... Unless they are Orcs....
ciao
drieux
---

[1] as opposed to a 'perl bigOt' -
who have a Big OT for Perl....
8-)
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