I didn't have a huge problem picking up Perl (It's like Othello: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master), but when I started programming, I just couldn't understand the concepts of programming itself (mostly, I kept trying to figure out where the variables were physically kept...sigh).

You mentioned that this person has done Cobol, but are you sure that they really have programing experience? If they don't understand programming, you have a much bigger project than if they don't understand Perl. If they do understand programming, it's a matter syntax and familiarity.

Anyway, I used SAMS' Perl in 21 days, and it really worked out to about 14.

-OzzyOsbourne


In reply to RE: I need a bit of mentoring advice by OzzyOsbourne
in thread I need a bit of mentoring advice by mpennucci

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.