2. What additional programming/scripting languages should I learn in conjuntion with Perl to better enhance my "all-around" programming possibilities? In other words, what additional languages work well with Perl?

If you're only interested in the sysadmin side of things, then bash is the hands-down most helpful other choice. It's not too challenging to learn at all. Also become familiar (if you're not already) with command-line filter utils like awk, sed, grep, sort, cut, etc... You will find awk and sed to be pretty straight-forward coming from a Perl background. And although they aren't really scripting languages, make yourself familiar with the programs in the GNU textutils, fileutils, etc., they will be your friends forever once you start getting into bash scripting. Search this page for all package names ending in *utils and you'll find a huge arsenal of tools that will prove to be priceless.

If you are interested in a broader view of programming (ie, not just the sysadmin side of life), try out as many languages as you can grab. C/C++ are going to stay useful for a long time, especially in a *NIX environment. Java, SQL, as others mentioned.. Examine how different languages handle different constructs, and find your favorite modes of expression. I would highly recommend learning a functional programming language like Lisp or Scheme if you don't know these already. They are so different from the imperative languages we all know -- it will blow your mind at first, but (ideally) open your mind up to new paradigms. Exploration is the key to broadening your skills, so look around and find what you like in every language you try.

1. Can Perl perform every programming task I will ever need to perform? i.e. Sys Admin, CGI, etc..

Theoretically, if it's computable, Perl can do it. Then again, so could any language. A better question might be: Is Perl the best choice to perform every programming task I will ever need to perform? In short, no. Perl makes a lot of things easy, there is no doubt. But other languages make some things easier. On a related note, when is someone going to make Perl bindings to the Linux kernel so that we can write device drivers in Perl? Hopefully never ;)

Cheers,
blokhead

In reply to Re: Survey my peers by blokhead
in thread Survey my peers by /dev/null

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