Perl vocabulary builder utility

I'm learning Perl. I'm using a flash card software program on my PDA to help build my Perl "vocabulary". It's great because I can study Perl and learn it cold without lugging around huge books. I'm also doing this because I seem to think more clearly with english language symbols instead of very terse, abstract programming symbols.

For instance, one of my flash card entries is "list constructor operator". Then, when I press a button, the following gets revealed:

Definition: two scalar values separated by two consecutive periods

Notes: (1 .. 5)            # same as (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
(1.2 .. 5.2)        # same as (1.2, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.2)
(2 .. 6,10,12)      # same as (2,3,4,5,6,10,12)
($a .. $b)          # range determined by current values of $a and $b
[download]

I would definitely be interested in sharing my work on the web here at Perl monks. I think it would be of great value to both Perl Monks and Newbies. Where do I start investigating how to make this happen?

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Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by Masem (Monsignor) on Apr 12, 2001 at 01:56 UTC
Pretty much, it sounds like a good idea, with simply the need to get the cards online some place. If you don't have your own server, the numerous free server spaces (geocities, etc), even with the various strings attached, would work. I'm not sure what format that your flashcard package stores the data in, but if you can get it into XML, that would be great, but even something as simple as HTML would work. Then just make sure you post your site as a new node and possibly in your home node, and hopefully people would continue visiting it. One thing you may want to do is increase the knowledge base of your flashcards by allowing others to submit good summaries for them. I'd try to set up a special site for this; the script would simply take submissions for flashcards, which would be stored in some fashion, with the ability for yourself to moderate it. It would be a rather simple script to set up. You'd also want to make sure that the current list of cards is available to the web in general, preferrably in some fashion coughxmlcough that would allow the enduser to put the cards into any format they think is useful. Those that contribute can also see what entries have been included already. Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com \|\| "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by nysus (Parson) on Apr 12, 2001 at 02:15 UTC
Thanks for the suggestions. I do have my own server I could set it up on. Unfortunately, I don't have any knowledge of XML. I like your idea of having a community of users help develop them. Again, unfortunately, I don't yet have the expertise to set something like that up but I would definitely be interested in moderating it, perhaps with the help of a Monk or two to ensure accuracy. I'll begin thinking about how the cards could displayed in HTML. The way my system works now is that I have the O'Reilly Perl books on CD. I link my PDA to my computer and whatever I copy to the clipboard becomes available to paste into my PDA. Getting the data back out of my PDA and posting it to the web would probably violate copyright. It might be best just to start with a list of raw flash words, no definitions, and start from there. I'll think some more on this.	[reply]
Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by Trimbach (Curate) on Apr 12, 2001 at 03:41 UTC
Hey... great idea. But instead of copying info from the O'Reilly CD why not just copy directly from the man pages that are part of the standard Perl distribution? For the purpose of flash cards this should be more than fine.... and you wouldn't violate copyright in the process. You should be able to access the man pages pretty easily no matter what machine you're on... ActiveState distributes them in html format (easily cut-able and paste-able) and of course the *NIX distributions have them, too. Gary Blackburn Trained Killer	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by nysus (Parson) on Apr 12, 2001 at 08:51 UTC
Gary, I was looking at some of the examples from an O'Reilly book and comparing them to the perlman examples. The perlman examples seem just a little to arcane for my tastes. That's because the perlman is meant to be a reference, not a teaching aid. The good news is I found this node.	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by Trimbach (Curate) on Apr 12, 2001 at 15:13 UTC
Quoting O'Reilly texts to answer individual questions online is one thing... repackaging and redistributing a substantial amount of their content into another format is quite another. IANAL, but if you are interested in pursuing this project for other than your own use you should fly O'Reilly an email yourself to make sure you're not doing "Godzilla meets Tokyo" on their copyright. :-D Gary Blackburn Trained Killer	[reply]
(tye)Re: Perl vocabulary builder utility by tye (Sage) on Apr 12, 2001 at 18:57 UTC
`(1.2 .. 5.2) # same as (1.2, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.2)` [download] Not with my copy of Perl. Reading the documentation on `..` I would come to the same conclusion as you but testing reveals that (1..5) is the actual result. - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")	[reply] [d/l] [select]