use Perl

• Effective Perl Programming ... (Score:2)

  by ask (83)

  If any book then Effective Perl Programming [amazon.com] was the one that got me a bit closer to "mastering perl".
  
    - ask

  --
  

  -- ask bjoern hansen [askbjoernhansen.com], !try; do();
  • Re:Effective Perl Programming ... (Score:2)

    by brian_d_foy (44)

    Good idea... I'll have to look at its table of contents when I get home.
    
    It used to be online, but I think Joseph let that slip away. I was able to grab parts of it off archive.org though. Does anyone have the rest? I'd like to see about hosting it if Joseph will allow it.
• what constitutes mastery? (Score:1)

  by perrin (4270)

  I like most of your outline, especially the performance chapter, but the chapter about TIE, AUTOLOAD, source filters, symbol tables, and type globs looks like the script of a horror movie to me. These are things that I expect mature coders to understand and almost totally avoid. I suppose they have to learn them somewhere though. I do like the part about error handling. Many perl coders I meet don't have much knowledge about this.

  If I were going to look for a training manual for people I would like
  • Re:what constitutes mastery? (Score:2)

    by brian_d_foy (44)

    I'm not sure what constitutes mastery, and it's something that I have to define. However, getting through the book won't make anyone a Perl master. I want to teach how to master Perl, meaning that once they've gone through the book they should be able to answer their own questions. That's a hard thing to show in the outline because it comes in bits and pieces in all of the other topics.
    
    I also avoid subjects covered much better in other books (so maybe I should have a chapter on other books). Perl Best Pract
    • Re:what constitutes mastery? (Score:1)

      by perrin (4270)

      Although pretty unusual, I think a chapter on other books sounds like a great idea. The one on Code Complete is certainly useful.
• Suggestions (Score:1)

  by educated_foo (3106)

  Here are two things I think would be interesting: First, while it is a bit far afield, a historical chapter describing Perl 5's roots in Perl 4 and also in C, sed, and awk would be interesting. I think part of mastering Perl is understanding why it is the way it is, and I think an evolutionary account would supply much enlightenment. This seems even more useful for people coming from a non-Unix background, who may lack the natural instinct for small composable scripts and one-liners.

  Second, a chapter sh
• Mastering mastery (Score:1)

  by n1vux (1492)

  I second the recommendation for Effective Perl [isbn.nu].

  For the Other Books section, good, you have Damian's PBP [isbn.nu] @ORA [oreilly.com]of course. You should add Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions [isbn.nu] @ORA [oreilly.com]; is a 3rd edition planned or needed of that?

  Draft Proposal comments:

  • Perl Context: Want.pm [cpan.org] has more varieties of context than the outline.
  • 4 programming models - isn't OO in the list? That would be 5. Surely the OO in Alpaca/Intermediate hasn't finished the discussion of OO. Mastering should discuss the grand matters of tas

  --
  Bill
  # I had a sig when sigs were cool
  use Sig;