Fellow Monks: As an old timer, who is a newbie coder (and a new initiate) I think that one reason many people never become proficient at writing perl is the abundance of scripts that are already out their, and are available to use.

Speaking only for myself, I have always been able to patch scripts together, and to get something to work (but I never learned much) It has been my experience that the only way I have learned to do anything is to learn from my mistakes.

What I have found most useful is a script that I copied from a book, to grep through the FAQ's for information.

I find that 90 % of my errors are syntax related that are explained quite well, when I use 'warnings' and 'strict'.

It is my belief that the best way for the expert coders at the monastry, to help newcomers, is to encourage them to just write code, with the help of a good book and the perl documentation.
Reading books but not writing code does not work as I have already tried that; sometimes you just have to do it.

Fortunately, I am getting to the point now that I can write short scripts that do not generate errors, but they will not do what I want them to do either. However, I am very pleased with this as I consider it progress.

Perlmonks is a magnificent resource and an exceptional pool of talent. I consider myself fortunate to have found this site.

emcs