use Perl

Well, before I die I'll note the current state of OOP.

1. Locate examples and explanations of said examples
2. Use already-written examples
3. Modify them slightly and observe changes
4. Attempt to write new code that duplicates the effect
5. Note problems, attempt to rectify
6. Arrive at new interesting notion, go back to 1

I'm at 4/5 now, in no small part due to helpful commentary. :) Write new code, see where I screwed up, try it again. This is the stage that can last long periods of time, usually while I do other things; which is good, because that will associate it with many other things and help me apply it. It's also bad, because it takes me so long sometimes to grok new things.

I'm really farting around at this point; I'm trying to write code to generate neural nets, and I barely know how those work. I can at least see if what I think I'm supposed to do is happening when I write certain things, though.

Quick Addendum: I typed in almost precisely what Pudge had up in the comments on the last journal entry, and managed to store and retrieve data with the set and get subs. I feel that's fairly significant (getting a hash value set opens the door wide) so I'll crash for the night.