in reply to Not-So-FAQ about learning Perl

If your looking for perl centric OO design then Damian Conway's Object Oriented Perl is exzactly what you are looking for.

I wish you luck on getting the kids into programming, and I'm on the side of 'perl as a first language' camp though there is disagrement on that opinion by some. I haven't been able to get my kids to touch code beyond html. There's nothing to win in coding I guess.

However I should mention Andrew L. Johnson's Elements of Programming with Perl. I own it only because I'm obsessive about buying perl books. As a starter language book it's pretty good. I haven't finished it yet but I see the last chapter even gets into OO basics. Just the basics. If your kids are over 14 or so this might be a good book to attempt to start them on. I'm finding it's helping me to get my perl 'jargon' a little better understood. It is just a little patronizing, so if you can't handle an author giving you 'kid glove' treatment stick with Randal Schwartz (aka merlyn) and Tom Christiansen's Learning Perl. Either way You'll need The Camel for reference. Unless you don't mind On-Line documentation.

coreolyn Duct tape devotee.

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Re: Re: Not-So-FAQ about learning Perl
by ichimunki (Priest) on Dec 27, 2000 at 04:29 UTC
    Thanks! The Manning books (especially "OOP" for myself) are two I don't have that I will consider more carefully. "Elements" looks like it would be great for high school kids just starting out with programming. But I should have given some background to be clearer, I've read the Camel, I've got Nutshell and Perl/Tk. I rely heavily on PODs, other online resources, and subscribe to TPJ.

    For me, the mechanics of Perl are coming along nicely. What I'm looking for is more along the lines of design/engineering. I'm probably going to pick up "Pragmatic Programmer", but I'm wondering if there are other classics in the realm of non-language-specific programming theory that relate well to Perl, or that use Perl examples.
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      The only text that comes to mind is the almost-universally-liked Mastering Algorithms with Perl. (The only person I've known to dislike it is the enigmatic Abigail, who has high expectations.)

      You wouldn't do badly with decent books about programming, whether Design Patterns, Code Complete, or even Extreme Programming Explained. I'm not aware of any books discussing functional programming design, at least from a language-neutral point of view, but there are bound to be a couple out there worth your time.

      Having just used closures and recursion to solve a rather nasty puzzle, I'm a big believer in mixing different techniques when appropriate.

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