I also backed into programming. I am the quintessential "Just Another
English Major Turned SysAdmin" sort. I also came in from DOSneyland and
not from UNIX.
Still, I only undertook to learn Perl after some poking around to see
what language would allow me to best do the sort of automations I
wanted to do. Later, when I found myself deep into list processing to
condition bad customer data files, I was glad I chose Perl.
Learning Perl may not teach you OOP, but that was not what a true
beginner comes to learn. I thought it excellent and occasionally
entertaining. (I still chuckle when I think of the index entry for
RINDEX).
In general, for someone of my sort, Learning Perl is clearly the way to
go. Having gotten through that, one should then rush out and acquire
Programming Perl, and read the first several chapters carefully.
Someone approaching Perl with a much stronger programming background
might prefer to tackle Programming Perl or another book directly. I am
not sure, however, that an experiened C++ program is the intended
audience of this list.
Then subscribe to this excellent list, and get down to work.
--- Chris Lott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Chris> Personally, I think _Learning Perl_ is really showing its age.
>
> I'm going to try to figure out how to say this without insulting a
> book that
> I *do* like and authors who are both Perl wizards and whose writing
> has
> given me a lot. Maybe dated isn't the right word, although the books
> style
> is, for lack of a better word, more "old fashioned." I can only speak
> to my
> own experience and that of those who I know, and I would say that
> half still
> feel that the _Learning Perl_ book is the best book out there, while
> the
> other half found other volumes more effective.
>
> I've recommended LP in the past many times, and there are certain
> people to
> whom I still make that recommendation. In fact, that might be part of
> it...
> those who are already programmers in another language seem to really
> profit
> from LP.
>
> For me (who came into computers ass-backwards carrying degrees in
> philosophy
> and writing poetry), it just didn't WORK that well. There seemed to
> be
> little things assumed about the language and terminology assumed
> about the
> reader that I wasn't grokking. I'll grant that it has been a few
> years since
> I used the book (I was using a Second Edition though), nor can I
> recall
> specifics since it has been a few years and I have since learned to
> grasp at
> least a FEW more concepts.
>
> For what it is--a book that is meant to accompany or represent a
> particular
> class of a particular length in hours-- LP is great. For programmers
> in
> other languages, or who even have experience in any other language,
> it is
> probably great. For me, with very little experience of any kind, it
> didn't
> work out so well. As a single starting tome for beginners, I feel
> that the
> expanded coverage of using modules, OO, CGI, and the generally more
> lengthy
> and in-depth explanations of most concepts in the _Beginning Perl_
> book are
> more fruitful. That might just be a quality of having more room to
> explain
> concepts (or to luxuriate in explanations and handholding and
> diagrams that
> others might not need, some would say). Yes, it would take more time
> to
> cover that book, but my answer wasn't about what book would fit in a
> limited
> number of hours best, but in a series of books that we would
> recommend.
>
> > I pondered this question VERY carefully when redesigning the llama
> > course over the past few years, which has become the llama3 book
> soon
> > hitting the streets. There's nothing dated about a book and course
> > that are updated every two months or so.
>
> I look forward to seeing this revision. The second edition came out
> in 97,
> right?
>
> c
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