With regards to "Don't use Windows", I would change that to "Use at least more than one operating system". Knowing only one (kind of) operating system makes you blind for things that could be different. Very often, I see Perl programmers simply take (and propagate) things as a fact, like "file systems are case sensitive", "you can delete an open file" or "file locking needs cooperation", when they happen to be just quirks of the one operating system they use.

Of course, Perl is more geared towards programmers wanting all the world to be like (some incarnation of) Unix, but across with unixish operating systems ranging from HPUX over Linux to OSX, many assumptions don't hold true. Being able to quickly identify and question your assumptions is a great tool, and being exposed to a diversity of operating systems helps hone that skill.

In reply to Re^2: What should you know before you start to learn Perl? by Corion
in thread What should you know before you start to learn Perl? by luis.roca

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.