Dear Monks,

Please take mercy upon a humble newbie and cast your pearls of wisdom, drawn from the vast seas of your knowledge, my way, benevolent Sirs. I shall treasure your gifts forever...

I need your guidance on a question I have not the knowledge to answer.

I'm new to Perl. I want to learn Perl very, very well. So well that I can become a full time (maybe self employed) Perl developer, developing web based systems useful to my fellow humans.

The issue I ponder is which OS platform to learn -- and upon which to learn Perl well. The four OS paths I ponder are FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris 10 and Windows XP (via Activestate).

I ponder the pros and cons of choosing one OS verses another to grow with as I gain *nix server wisdom and grow in the good graces of Perl acumen.

I believe Perl does make use of system calls; and that each OS has its own unique nuances. Thus I imagine some CPAN modules and other pre written code may work better (or even not at all) on one OS verses another in a server environment.

FreeBSD and Solaris 10 appeal to me the most at my current newbie level, with Linux next and Windows last....but I most value learning Perl well and wish to do so on an OS with the minimum "opportunity cost" regarding Perl power as I grow into a monk you would be proud to have as a member of this esteemed community.

FWIW, I've been a COBOL mainframe programmer for many years; thus I'm not a newbie to programming. At work, they are migrating to web bases Java systems. The verbosity of Java and the complexity of its application stack needed to serve up a dynamic web page doesn't appeal to me. But browsing thru an intro to Perl book brightens my soul and pulls at me with a magnetic tug, as do books on *nix. Which OS and why?

Thank you,

a humble newbie

In reply to Effect of OS Platform choice for learning and doing Perl well by Anonymous Monk

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