I'd suggest that now is the wrong time to be thinking about getting involved with the development of Perl 5. It seems to be generally accepted that the Perl source code is a bit of a mess and that only a relatively small number of people can understand it (I'm only reporting what I hear as I've never been anywhere near it myself).

On the other hand, it might be exactly the right time to get involved in the development of Perl 6. The discussions have only just begun and one of the aims seems to be to simplify the way the Perl internals work. Why not subscribe to the Perl 6 bootstrap mailing list and see what's going on over there.

On the other (third!) hand. Perl 5 will still be around for a long time and there is plenty to be gained by learning more about it. You mention OO and that is certainly a ripe field for new achievement. Read the perlboot and perltoot man pages and treat yourself to a copy of Damian Conway's most excellent book. Find some code that you've written which could be useful to others and bundle it up into a module. If you can't think of anything to practice on, take a look at the Perl Modules List - that always contains a list of modules that no-one has got round to writing yet.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000, ICA, London
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>

In reply to RE: I've been thinking. . . (more of a ramble than a mediation) by davorg
in thread I've been thinking. . . (more of a ramble than a mediation) by jjhorner

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