in reply to Is a Perl glossary necessary?

I don't believe that I have ever come across anything that explained...

You just linked to it. A general purpose dictionary should answer many questions.

[T]he meaning of uncommon words should be explained the first time they are used

That is a good goal, and all tutorial writers should follow it appropriately. I don't think it's the right goal for reference pages, though. How do you define "first"? How do you choose exactly which examples to highlight?

I'm not convinced that there are a lot of people learning a computer language without some practical goal in mind. Perhaps a better question is, "How can we teach Perl in the appropriate context of solving problems?"

Don't let me stand in the way of doing something useful, though. :)

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Re: Re: Is a Perl glossary necessary?
by Popcorn Dave (Abbot) on Oct 09, 2002 at 06:09 UTC
    The closest thing I ever found to a Perl dictonary was The Coriolis Group's Perl Black Book, which has served me well and saved my butt a few times. It's similar to O'Reilly's Perl cookbook, but a bit more for the beginner.

    Unfortunately Coriolis is apparently out of business, so the only way to find these now is used.

    All in all, the whole concept is an excellent idea to pursue, although I think you're right in that teaching in some particular context is perhaps a better slant than just another available reference.

    There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling now.

[reply]
      As far as I can tell, Coriolis is certainly not out of business - at least, they're still publishing books. Amazon.co.uk has the Perl Black Book new at £41.99 here.

      As far as a Perl glossary/dictionary goes, I think it's a fantastic idea. I'm relatively new to Perl myself, and although I have a lot of experience with other languages, some of the concepts could certainly have been explained much better.

      I think the idea is certainly worthy of follow-up, and I'm pretty sure that there's plenty of people out there that'd be willing to help set something like that up.

      --Foxcub

[reply]
        If Amazon still has it for sale, I'd pick it up quickly.

        As far as them still being in business, a few weeks ago I tried calling their offices in Arizona, but the phones were disconnected -- not a good sign. In addition, a technical bookseller told me that they had gone under, but hadn't heard if anyone was going to purchase them or what was going to happen.

        Hopefully my information is dated, and they're going to bounce back healthy and strong. They produce a wonderful series of reference books for a lot of languages.

        There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling now.

[reply]

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