I myself like to see more things like Why I like functional programming. I've been programming for arounnd 13 years now and I picked up Perl about 4-5 years ago now. My first year or two, I would just be banging out an occasion small one-off script. I quickly picked up how to do easy things.

As I wrote more of these utilities (text munging | CSV| etc), I picked up more and more of the general language symantics. It just hit critical mass one day when I knew enough to appreciate it's unique design. From that point on, my use of Perl just snow-balled. As it got easier to do more and more in less code and shorter times I've become something of a Perl junkie. I've been entertaining getting the shabang line tattooed :)

I'm always trying to do things in different ways and Perl rarely dissappoints. I've never been much of a writer but I suppose it's the same feeling an author or poet gets appreciating their finished prose.

I think one of the reasons so many people new to Perl start off with CGI is because it's so easy to pick up that subset and not have to stray far from it.(makes Simple things Simple) I think appreciating it's true range and gaining a modicum of mastery takes time. CGI is just a natural way to be introduced. Another point is that non-trivial CGI is really just regular programming. I write CGI scripts a lot but they are usually more than just simple forms. They're the same type of programs that I write for the command line, just with an html wrapper.

Contemplating my time here, I would just like to take a moment to say thanks to vroom and everyone else here who helps and contributes to the Monestary. I've learned so much more since our introduction.

Honestly, I haven't gotten so much mental fuel from something since I discovered Worldcom MCI BBS a decade ago where John Carmack of id Software and Michael Abrash of M$ hung out.
(Fun OT fact: For the first couple of months writing DOOM, John was actually sharing the source code. He must have gotten rebuked for it as it stopped and all previous messages concerning it and the techniques used were purged. This sounds somewhat familiar. )

-Lee

"Did I write all that?"