On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 07:46:57PM +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi, > > By now you will probably have worked out that this community is very > > happy to help people of any ability to improve their Perl skills, but is > > rather reluctant just to hand out ready-made solutions. This is as it > *please read the mail in full before commenting on *anything*. *
Of course. And re-read, and thought about for quite a while ;-) > Yep, but this time I needed a ready made solution. This random string > generation program is a part of a big program written in bash by me. I > just couldn't spend time learning perl for this. I had to get this ready > ASAP. I asked if someone knew how to do this in bash and had any > pointers, but no one responded. > > I could certainly do so in a fraction of the time it will take to write > > this mail. So why hasn't anyone just done that? > I have 3 solutions mailed privately. I will explain why they mailed me > privately in a article I intend to put on web. I will be interested to read it. > > Some help to work on Perl development. Some contribute to CPAN. Some > > help others to learn in fora such as this. Some don't. > Many, many more give unwanted advice. Believe me, I am not saying about > this list. This list is unusually friendly, but this is an attitude I > found in many people. > Some people say that I have to pay for writing the script. Well, I don't > have that kind of money. Even $50 they ask for is big amount in India. > I mean a odd-job man can support a family of 3 for 3 months easily here > on that money. And I am also going to utilize this script for a school > project here which will be done free of cost. I think that if you had been able to explain your situation a little more, telling us why you needed the program, then there might have been a little less confusion. People here are very helpful, but don't like to feel taken advantage of. Part of this might be a language problem. I'm assuming English is not your first language, but you write it well enough that I am not sure about this ;-) > > But then things took a turn for the worse. You told us that you didn't > > know what to do with the advice and just wanted a solution. I decided > Yes, I spoke the truth. I couldn't make heads and tails out of this. If > you had given only John's solution and a mail in Hebrew, > I would have not able to make out the difference ;-) > > It looks as though you have already taught yourself a number of skills, > > including the ability to set up and maintain linux systems, networking, > > mail, vi and others. It seems that Perl could be a useful tool for you, > yes, I *love* perl. Infact, I was inspired to learn Linux when i read a > perl success story by Chris Benson. (btw, did you sign the guest-book > :):):)) I don't normally do that, but on this occasion I have made an exception :-) > > and that you are willing and have the ability to work things out for > > yourself. > But python guys are insisting I start with Python which they say have > more systematic approach. Now, i am caught in a situation where I like > perl but cannot muster courage to learn it and and don't know if > there are people around to help Vs. python without any particular fondness, > yet am asked to learn it by people over the globe who have helped me a lot. > A Catch-22 case :) I won't try to dissuade you from learning Python. Perl, Python and Ruby are all nice languages occupying a similar problem space. Different people prefer one over the others. Some people like more than one. Language wars are unproductive. > To boil it down. I know Gurus in python and no one in perl. Whether they > will help me or not is a different question. But their mere presence > assures me. Forgive me for saying so, but your mail would have a more > impact if you had given me the solution along with the mail. Only this I seriously considered tacking the solution on to the end. I wrote it and tested it to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes in my advice. In the end I decided not to send it because it was only four lines long. The first line is the shebang line. I thought that since you could write a shell script this wouldn't be a problem for you. Also, what was required was descibed in the link I sent. The next two lines John had already sent you, and they were correct. The final line was just to print out the results. I thought this would not be too hard for you to figure out, and was also described early in the link I sent. I also thought it might give you satisfaction to be able to do a little research, put the pieces together and solve the problem. Had you explained some of the things you did in this mail, I would have added the solution at the end. If you still want it, please ask, but it sounds as though you have the problem solved now. > advice leads a newbie to believe that perl is difficult > What I was asking was simple according to me > and when I didn't receive any concrete answers I was led to believe that > it cannot be accomplished in perl easily even by advanced users. I hope you see now that that is not the case. > > was www.perl.org. Right at the top is a like to learn.perl.org, and the > > first line there points us to perlintro. This is a nice document which > > will get you started. > Ok. Now, in my TODO list. > > If all goes well, you should have written your first Perl program. This > > might be the start of a wonderful journey for you. There is a lot to > amen!!! I wish I can write coooool perl programs. I will be instant hit > here, especially with guys ;-) I think that learning Perl, or even Python or Ruby, would be a great advantage. I wish you well. You are always welcome to ask questions here. (Well, the Perl ones anyway :-) > Now for some shameless self promotion. > Please visit the site www.geocities.com/rpayal99 and sign the > guest-book. I promised myself I will make it public once I have atleast > 10 signs there or 1 sign of Linus Thorwalds whichever is earlier. Having mentioned the site on this list it will be archived and the search engines will pick it up. I think you've already made it public :-) I tried hard to ensure that my replies to you were clear and didn't cause offence. I'm sorry if I didn't quite get there. -- Paul Johnson - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pjcj.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
