The problem with being self-taught is that you tend to have gaps in your knowledge. You just never happend to read a specific feature of whatever you're learning, even though those that went through a course on it learned it on the first day.

I usually accept this fact by ignoring it. Even if you have specific gaps, what you do know tends to be more in-depth than the people who took a course on it.

I first encoutered Perl about five years ago on a book titled "Teach Yourself CGI Programming with Perl in 21 Days", which is an excelent book if you aspire to be Matt Write (of course, I didn't know that at the time--the author of the book holds Write's scripts in high regard). I put Perl aside for some years, but picked up the Blue Camel about a year and half ago and retaught myself. Then I came across Perl Monks and learned more in six months than I had in the previous four and half years.

Because I needed the credit for my major, I am taking a course in Perl at a local college (two-year associates degree program). I usually end up having a week-long project done during class the day it's assigned. My last project came back with a note from the teacher saying "as usual, I learned something from your project".

In other words, being self-taught put me above and beyond what is being taught in a course. Granted, this is a basic Perl course (it doesn't even teach Perl OO), but when you end up teaching your teacher, it's clear that your self-taught-ness is not a hiderance. Admittedly, I did learn a few things in the class that I simply hadn't come across before, but it's rare.

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I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated