This is for work. I'm a UNIX shell scripter(Sys Admin) who was more or less thrown into this position.

I have done a smattering of other languages, and lots of classes, but nothing prepared me for actual production coding. My company is in a jam and I am trying to help out until they can hire a more proficient Perl Programmer.

I have found that I enjoy Perl, and plan to continue to work with it full time. I am enrolled in several classes; unfortunately, they don't start until April.

Edited by planetscape - removed br tags, replaced with <p></p> tags

Okay, now I understand. The problem, I think, for your situation is this: if you do a great job with this script with mostly borrowed code you will likely be asked to do a bunch more (and starting in April means you won't be done with those classes until what, June?).

You need help now, but it isn't really code snippets that you need. I think you need a few good books that will help you basically do what Sys Admins need to do often. Here is a quick reading list:

• Effective Perl Programming
• Perl for System Administration
• The Perl Cookbook
There are others, but if I were you I would read Effective Perl Programming cover-to-cover (it is a thin book), scan through the Perl Cookbook for script problems you are having right now, and then read the System Administration book. I used to have this Perl Black Book on my desk for a while until I read the above books and realized that the Black Book (at least my edition) was full of bad programming examples.

BTW, Perl programming can be addictive. Before I started learning Perl I was a professional VB programmer. Nowadays I struggle to remember how to do simple things in VB because I use it so rarely. Welcome to the world of Perl.

Celebrate Intellectual Diversity

Almost right. My boss knows I'm floundering, but we don't have any other options right now. This needs to be done and we haven't been able to find any experienced Perl Programmers, so she asked me to give it a shot. I wouldn't be as far as I am now without the help of the Perl Monks! And my books. On my desk right now I have Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules, Effective Perl Programming, Advanced Perl Programming, The Complete Perl Reference, Higher-Order Perl, mastering Regular Expressions, Perl for Dummies, Learning Perl, Perl Cookbook and Programming Perl. I have others, but I've been using the one's I just listed today.

I appreciate your suggestions, and am going to get Perl for System Administration ASAP. I did UNIX Shell Scripting for 35 years, and we thought Perl was close enough that I could blunder through. Boy were we wrong. But I am enjoying the experience, and want to learn, and WILL learn. In the meantime, I need to thank everyone who has been helping me squeak through!

Edited by planetscape - removed br tags, replaced with <p></p> tags

This probably doesn't help now, but you could have gotten a part-time proficient perl programmer from http://jobs.perl.org/ to get you through the crisis.

duff

Thanks. I sent the link to my boss. I can use all the help I can get and then some!