So what do people do? Do you simply pick something like DBI or ojects and see what you can do? Do you simply pick up a book and dive through it? Do you take examples from here and try them out?

I'd say you need to find a project. That could be something just for you -- e.g. I've written my own photo-album cgi and my own RSS aggregator script.

Or it could be a community project. This is good if you know that you're the kind of person that needs a community of programmers to help keep you motivated. Pick some Perl-related project and devote a few hours a week to it. If you want to be bleeding edge, hack on Pugs. Or maybe organize a Phalanx project. Or focus on a community project like PPI.

Or find a product that's cool and runs/runs-on Perl and hack it. For example, the Squeezebox server is written in Perl and you can use Perl to customize it, write plugins, and so on for a very cool piece of hardware.

The point is that Perl is just a tool -- so if you want play with that really cool, well-balanced, TIMTOWTDI hammer, just start looking for some nails in your life that look interesting!

As a backup plan -- visit here often. Reading and solving other people's problems is a great way of staying connected to the language if you can't manage anything else.

Update: fixed Squeezebox link.

-xdg

Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

In reply to Re: How do you stay motivated? by xdg
in thread How do you stay motivated? by Marza

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