Re: Self-improvement and TMTOWTDI

[Limbic~Region]

Perl is constantly humbling me!

I considered myself a decent programmer before I started working with Perl about 8 months ago. I almost never read a book on a new language I was learning other than to get syntax. I mean - there are standard control structures almost every languages has right? You just learn how this language does it and you continue programming the way you always have right? - WRONG!

In this thread it is said that in Java, it is easy to tell if someone is a decent programmer, but with Perl's Tim Toady approach, the waters are murky. I would agree that is is easy to tell the green newbies as their code looks much like a first year student learning a foreign language. The problem is - telling the difference between a mediocre Perl programmer and an expert.

There is a scene in Good Will Hunting where the professor is telling Will that there are only a handful of people in the world that can tell that Will is a thousand times the mathematician than he is. Unless you are a professional programmer that understands how the interpreter, optimizer, compiler, etc works - it is very hard to see why "Will's" 2 line code difference from the proffesor's makes it 10 times faster and/or more efficient.

A while back, I posted this node about the value of "RE"-coding for a newbie. I guess I should have also added how important it is to RTFM from cover to cover. Sure you can learn how to use proper syntax and get the job done, but without getting into the guts of how Perl works under the hood - a newbie will never be Mr. Will Hunting.

Cheers! L~R