Perl was one of those things that fell on me. I used to work for an aerodefense and when huge layoffs went down. I went to one temp agency and they said all I was good for was a help desk job since I didn't know perl. Never mind the fact, I knew the scripts and was well verse in the Unix Kernal. I digress.

I started by reading everything. I had the Oreily books, Learning is an Ok book but I think the Beginning Perl book by Simon Cozens is much better!

I also have the Cookbook, Programming, Perl for sysadmins and Mastering Alogo books by Oreily.

I took a class at the local JC and was lucky to have an excellent teacher who knew Perl inside and out. Many things fell into place after that.

Getting on some sites helps a great deal. You can always find advice from here for example. I thought I would try and get info from a vendors website. Never did any programming for the web. I posted a help request and asked where to look for such info, mods, etc. Got 4 replies that helped me out!

After you have some of the knowledge in your head, play play play. Try out stuff! That is the best way!

Depending on how far you want to go I would also suggest Network Programming with Perl Stein - This is really high level if you are just planning to do simple scripts.

If you are going to work with windows, I would also suggest Dave Roth's books Win32 Perl Programming and his modules..

Good luck! It is a fun language and I am enjoying it still!

In reply to Hacking, reading and a class. by Marza
in thread How did you learn Perl? by venimfrogtongue

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