New to perl

[Monk_perl]

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[marto]

Start by reading the responses to the identically titled but different thread New to perl and My questions: new to perl. You have been given advice and answers to your questions. If there is something specifically you don't understand about the answers/advice given please let us know.

"Actually i am still confused about them, i think how much i have to include in answers..i expected you expert friends to solve them so that i will only have to understand answers anyway you friends left that part thinking that i am lazy and this will harm me if you solve them allright but i need more suggestions from you"

What do you mean?

"i want to know how to properly know answes from whole information at perl documentation or links you provided?"

Do you mean that you are having problems understanding the Perl documentation?

Please don't ignore the advice displayed when posting, two threads with the same title and different content may lead to confusion:

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?

[Ratazong]

Dear fellow monk,

to stay in the picture, you seem to have asked for wisdom, and the answers you got were the pointers to our holy books. Which -of course- contain all the wisdom you need. But also parts which you won't be able to understand yet.

Becoming wise is never the easy path. You will need to excercise, and start with the easy chores - even if they seem to be boring for you. And you need to have patience and self-discipline. It has always been that way, and it will always be.

So the path you should choose is to to get one of the many online-tutorials (or one of the many books targeted at beginners), and to study it. Read it. Do the excercises. Try to change the exercises and try to figure out what is happening. Step by step the things will get clearer. And if you really stumble, ask your fellow monks on guidance on that specific step.

The shortcut to enlightment you are looking for won't work. As Confucius says: Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning.. Start at the roots!

Welcome to the monastery! Rata

[raybies]

Want to be more effective at getting answers?

• read the links provided.
• write a short prototype in Perl of the principle you're trying to learn.
• do a search for the topic on your own.
• if you still don't understand what's going on, then post your example and your question and state what you've done so far.
• when posting your question keep it short, to the point, and use <code> tags around your perl source </code>
• use the preview button before submitting to make sure the format of your question is legible.

Perl is a language of actually trying things. It doesn't take much to have a working example of whatever you're trying to do. In other programming languages this is not the case--some require whole class schemes prior to doing the simplest things, so perhaps you're used to that extra work. Many perl concepts can be done in a few characters just from your command line.

Perl's is about getting the job done with as little verbiage as necessary. When you are pointed to a link, that's an expert Perl programmer's efficient way to help you find what you're looking for, without requiring a lot of extra words, and an indicator that had you done a little more searching on your own, you might've been able to find it on your own.

There are hundreds of threads started here everyday, and invariably someone is told how to make an effective post, so don't take it personally.

In a way, by receiving a very short response on a topic that's already been answered multiple times, it's an expert's way of stating they have confidence in your ability to think for yourself, and find out answers for yourself.

[Neighbour]

There's a proverb for this:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

[GrandFather]

Or maybe:

Give a man a fish and he owes you one fish.

Teach a man to fish and you lose your monopoly.

Fortunately that's not how PerlMonks generally works though. ;)

[Fletch]

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. -- Pratchet

(Not that I could name more than a few specific serial clue-impervious people that I'd like to set alight of course . . .)

[papidave]

The way I learned it:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
Teach a man to fish and he'll spend his life savings on fishing tackle.

But seriously, in this one man's opinion, there is more grace available here at PM for those in need of a clue than there is in most places on the web. You are required to take advantage of it by reading the links, but it's generally worth the result. Which leads to the equivalent:

Give a man a Perlish App, and he'll have a solution for the problem at hand;
Teach a man to use PM, and he'll spend the rest of his life perusing the Monastery (and CPAN).

[Erez]

...But can you teach a starving man?
The two are not inclusive

[Utilitarian]

The monks here, for the most part, do not mind a novice with a lot of questions, provided that the questions change in substance and nature over time, indicating that the novice is doing some work and actually striving for understanding.

Experienced monks answering last years exam questions for your course is not going to help with this years exam (unless the examiner is very lazy), however we are willing to point to the knowledge being examined by the question so providing you with a basis for answering this years questions on that knowledge. (I may never have previously added 123467 and 764532 together and the fact that I can state with confidence what the answer is doesn't mean I have learnt off all possible additions, understanding is the key)

In order to answer the questions posted you need to study and practice, there are no short-cuts. Study, write code, debug your code, and repeat. It genuinely does you no service to provide answers to relatively trivial questions, in fact writing this response is more demanding than supplying examples and copying the appropriate statement from the docs.

So finally there it is the path to all knowledge, study and learn from your mistakes.

[davido]

Here's how I learned Perl. First, I started playing with BASIC on Apple II, TI99/4A, and IBM-PC computers in the early to mid-80's. In about 1984 I began high school CS classes, first working with BASIC, and later moving on to Pascal.

In the late 80's, I began my college career as a CS major. There I got an introduction to CS theory; Big-O notation, modular styles, OO programming, etc. I was introduced to Modula-II, C, and C++. Partway through my time at the university I changed my major, but still finished with at least a minor in CS.

That gets us to the 90's. After some time away from all the fun, I picked up a book: Learning Perl. I read it, as well as Mastering Regular Expressions. But then distractions set in; starting a career, getting transferred around the Western US, getting married, etc. Now we're into 2003.

In 03 I picked up a newer revision of Learning Perl, as well as the Camel book, and a few others. I remembered immediately why Perl had grabbed my interest a few years earlier. But this time I really started loving it. Within a year I got through a number of Perl books, and additionally became interested in following questions and answers here at PerlMonks. When people asked questions here that interested me, I started seeing if I could come up with a sane answer. It became addictive, and sort of helped motivate me to dig deeper. I read the entire Perl core POD. Maybe I didn't understand 100% of it, but I read 100% of it. The O'Reilly books were really helpful too. It became a real hobby for me. It was like working on puzzles, but more rewarding.

Programming has never been a career for me; I've already got one. But it's been something I'm highly interested in, and have been for some time.

So when I see you asking people to give you test answers and not bother you with all this 'learning stuff', it makes me wonder why you're even bothering with Perl at all. I do it because it's mentally challenging, and fun for me. You seem entirely disinterested. And when I feel someone is disinterested in one of my passions, I'm not all that motivated to expend mental effort on that person. Not when there are others who are gobbling up the learning aspect of it, and actually appreciating the whole thing.

We're really not interested in whether you pass your class. I took to Perl because it was a very interesting language to me. Your grades are not anywhere on my list of motivations. I'm here because I love exercising my mind with Perl, and sharing with others when I'm able to contribute to their learning experience as well. Prerequisites are time and desire.

If you decide you'd like to learn Perl, let us know.