Luke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I bought the Learning Perl by Orielly but I returned it
> after realizing thats its almost the same as
> perldoc/manuals...
"Learning Perl" is a tutorial
perldoc is a reference
[...]
> My problem with programming is that i dont know if im
> doing the right thing...
It sounds like you need a tutorial to start with. The
references are good once you've got a lay of the land, but a
reference is different from a tutorial. The organization of
a tutorial is to start at nothing, and build understanding
in logical steps. The organization of a reference is for
finding out the particulars of a given function or operator
if you already know that's what you want.
Perhaps you should reconsider working through the tutorial.
It's how I got started with Perl over 5 years ago. I worked
through it *once*, then never looked at it again. It's a
"disposable" jump start into the reference (which is dog
eared and very heavily marked and used).
> Yes the program/script works but Im not sure if its
> effecient or not...
I, too, started programming as a senior in HS. Hard to
believe that's 20+ years ago. Time flies like an arrow (but
fruit flies like a bannana).
One of the things I've learned in that time is that most
jobs have two steps.
1. get it right
2. get it fast
Most jobs don't have the luxury of getting to step 2.
Apply the rule of ducks - if it looks like a duck, quacks
like a duck, and possibly flies like a duck -- it's probably
a duck.
Translated:
If it looks like it's working software, and it acts like
working software -- it's working software.
(i.e. who cares if it's not effecient? If you care next
week, you can re-work it next week.)
And, as a training exercise, you can take working software,
make some changes and see what happens. If you break it,
restore it and try something different. What did you learn?
If it still works, what did you learn? The basic idea here
is to have *working* software to muck around with. You
don't learn as well with broken software. Get it to work
(dirty, ugly, slow, whatever....), then keep it working as
your refine it into clean, pretty, fast software, and learn
lots along the way. If you work with broken software,
you're not sure that what you did to transmute broken
software into broken software is something worth
remembering. We call it playing with code, but it's really
a code word for learning -- take a look at my signature
file, and have fun.
Computers have been a continual mental exercise, and larning
adventure for me.
Good luck on your adventure,
Michael
--
Michael R. Wolf
All mammals learn by playing!
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