After spending the last 18 months in London, the time has come to head back to Auckland, New Zealand. Now, for some reason, Perl never really took hold NZ, at least at the places I worked at.

Now I'm thinking that one way I could spread the word is to share what Perl knowledge I do have with people who might be interested in learning (about) the language. I'm not sure where to aim this - perhaps as an after-hour course offered by a community/technical college. However, I'm not interested in actually writing a whole course. It sounds like a lot of work, and I was hoping maybe there were some course notes out there that I could use...

Feedback, ideas appreciated

(BTW - I don't profess to be a Perl guru, but I know enough to use in my job -- I understand data structures, common modules like DBI, writing OO modules etc.)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Community Perl Course
by Mr. Muskrat (Canon) on Feb 25, 2004 at 19:19 UTC

    Perl took hold in Hawkes Bay and Wellington enough for them to have the Hawkes Bay Perl Mongers & Wellington Perl Mongers. Perl Mongers is not a course but that does not mean that they will not teach you anything!

    I'm not sure how far away they are from you but you could at least sign up for their mailing lists.

[reply]
      Hey Thanks! I think that the Auckland Perlmongers never really took hold, which is a shame as Auckland is NZ's largest city (and also where I'm returning).

      When I was still in NZ, it looked like the Wellington PM group was active, and I see that the Damian was there this month. Bit far too attend, unfortunately
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Re: Community Perl Course
by NovMonk (Chaplain) on Feb 25, 2004 at 19:47 UTC
    I'm a long way from New Zealand, but closer to home, sometimes public libraries allow someone to come in and present a short talk -- give an overview of a topic (in this case Perl) and see afterwards if anyone who shows up (if anyone does) has an interest in banding together to learn more.

    Another idea might be to do some sort of presentation to your new co-workers, showing them a couple of useful things Perl could do to make their lives easier and see if that generates some interest. Either way, you might find some like minded people interested in forming a kind of study group, not as formal as Perl mongers, and see where it goes. And neither option commits you to any kind of "full course" sort of thing.

[reply]
      Good idea. I don't know if public libraries allow talks (I've never heard one) but maybe a library at one of the educational institutions...
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Re: Community Perl Course
by zentara (Cardinal) on Feb 26, 2004 at 16:04 UTC
    I think that an easy way to cultivate a "use Perl;" environment is to gather the people together, and go thru the nodes here on Perlmonks in a collaborative fashion, discussing the proposed solutions and their merits. Make it like a party, have beer,wine,etc.

    Now this would serve 2 purposes. It would familiarize the people with the types of problems that Perl commomly solves, and show them how to use all the online help which is available.

    Maybe break it into 3 hours, beginner,intermediate, and advanced; showing appropriate nodes during each.

    I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
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Re: Community Perl Course
by perlquest (Initiate) on Mar 03, 2004 at 06:02 UTC
    Earnest astroboy,

    I read your posting "Community perl course".Its a
    noble idea but its only meaningfull if your place has a
    proper atmosphere for apreciating perl.There are many such
    perl tutorials in the net that you can use in your material
    that you want to present .Also there are many short
    articles in various perl related mailing lists that can give
    an overall idea of perl and its applications.

    It depends upon you what u want to offer as a course:
    Just an introduction to perl.
    Or a complete tutorial for the biggners.
    You can also try to set Your website on perltutorial and give out
    pamplets giving short information
    on perl and about your tutorial website.

    Here are some links that can help you:
    www.pageresource.com/cgirec/index2.htm
    ;perl.about.com/cs/beginningperl/a/
    ;www.devdaily.com/Dir/Perl/Articles_and_Tutorials/
    ;perl.about.com/cs/intermediateperl/

    perlquest (bobquest_33@yahoo.co.in)

[reply]

      whoops - wasn't trying to come across as too earnest ... I've never been a member of boy scouts... honest!

      Thanks for the links. I'l try and crib as much info as I can without breaking copyright ;-)

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