in reply to Sub-initiate needs help getting started

First off Welcome to the Monastary! :)

Get yourself a copy of Perl in 21 days. That is a good starting point for where you're at. The books you do have are invaulable, but I personally think they can be a bit overwhelming if you've never done a lot of programming.

Next, get yourself a copy of Perl - obviously. :) ActiveState's is good for windows. So it's sort of up to you whether you go with 5.6 or 5.8. Other monks here who have more experience with both versions would be better qualified to advise you on that. I'm using 5.6 and it works for me.

Now as far as your debugger, there is a graphical debugger that is available on the web <a href="http://world.std.com/~aep/ptkdb/>here. Personally, I prefer this debugger, but again your mileage may vary.

Also, as a beginner I would say yes, put in use strict, -w and perhaps even use diagnostics to help you catch errors. And remember there's a LOT of good people here that are willing to help.

Good luck!

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

  • Comment on Re: Sub-initiate needs help getting started

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Re: Re: Sub-initiate needs help getting started
by jdporter (Paladin) on Aug 26, 2003 at 04:02 UTC
    Get yourself a copy of Perl in 21 days.
    Ugh. Terrible advice. Of all the Perl books out there, this is one to avoid.

    For better advice on how to choose a Perl book: Of course, one should check out our own Book Reviews, but I tend to take these with a grain of salt.

    I personally would recommend the following excellent on-line Perl books:

    As Simon said,
    You can't learn Perl in 24 hours, 21 days, 12 weeks, 9 months, or a year. I've been programming Perl for nearly five years and I'm still learning.
    Same here.

    jdporter
    The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.

[reply]
      The book that seems most appropriate in this particular case, is Perl Debugged. It's aimed at beginners, discusses ways to avoid and eliminate bugs, and gets quite favourable reviews. (Amazon, Perl Books)

      There's also a title Debugging Perl.

[reply]
      I don't think you can ever learn Perl, but you can get more proficient the more you do. That said, the reason I did suggest the 21 day book is I know a couple of people it did well for. Personally I learned via the camel, but it was the textbook for the class that I took.

      And yes there are a bunch of lousy Perl books out there, the Dummies Guide being one of the worst IMHO. However, I still think that for the person with little or no programming experience, O'Reilly tends to be a bit heavy.

      Just my opinion.

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

[reply]
        But unfortunately, people who don't already know Perl aren't qualified to critique a Perl book. I.e. you may think you learned well, even though you may have learned crap. "Perl in 21 Days" might teach well, but if the Perl it teaches is crappy, then it's a crappy Perl book. And that is exactly what I understand to be the case.

        jdporter
        The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.

[reply]
Re: Re: Sub-initiate needs help getting started
by bobn (Chaplain) on Aug 25, 2003 at 22:03 UTC

    Next, get yourself a copy of Perl - obviously. :) ActiveState's is good for windows.

    The OP stated that the app is already up and running on a Unix box. AS might be useful to take home on a laptop for practice, though.

    --Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com

    All code given here is UNTESTED unless otherwise stated.

[reply]
      You're right. After re-reading the post I realized I missed that point.

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

[reply]

        OK.

        Glad I never do that - yeah, right!

        To the original poster, Lori: Beware, the perl on your Unix box may be MUCH older than what you download from ActiveState today. Once you get commandline access, issue: 

        perl -v

        [download]
        to get the version number. It may actually make more sense to install an older version on your laptop (or other machine) if you don't have convenieint access to the main machine or an identical test machine.

        Though given your situation, you probably should arrange convenient access to a sutiable test environment, complete w/ SQL db and webserver - you're going to need it.

        --Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com

        All code given here is UNTESTED unless otherwise stated.

[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Re: Sub-initiate needs help getting started
by Lori713 (Pilgrim) on Aug 25, 2003 at 21:52 UTC
    Thanks for the hints and the welcome. I've downloaded Perl from ActiveState to my PC (and the fun begins...) and I'll be sure to use strict, -w in the future.
[reply]

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