FEAR OF PERL

[firewall00]

Hello all
i am really confused first i love perl so much .. i finished the learning perl book and i did all itis exercises and i felt my self familiar with perl

BUT

when it comming to writing my own code to perfome specific task i cannot
and i feel my self fear of writting the code seems to be very confused huh :S
what you are advice me ? what i can do to improve my perl
how can i write my own code
how to think the right thinking in the code and writting it :s
really i want to learn and iwill do what you going to tell me and thanks ...
ps: i need perl in scripting to help me to write scripts to administarte linux ,, and to working with itis configuration files .

[clinton]

Firewall00 we all started where you are now. None of us was born knowing everything that we know now (except maybe Cop). The best way to get to the next level is the same, whatever level you are at. Read, attempt, ask, then start at read again.

There are plenty of people on this site who know both more and less than you - don't be ashamed to ask questions and to appear stupid - your questions may well be interesting to others. But do try to find answers for yourself first - the chances are that somebody before you has had the same problem.

Welcome to Perl and to Perl Monks - you will find that, in this environment, you will grow rapidly.

Clint

[graff]

Is Perl the first programming language you are trying to learn? If so, and if you have not had any "formal instruction" in programming (i.e. a classroom environment), you might find it worthwhile to look for a programming class you can go to, even if it's not a class about Perl: having a teacher and fellow students to talk with about any programming language will be helpful, and you will be able to use what you learn in class when you work in Perl.

Since you have already been over the "Learning Perl" book, the next thing I would suggest is: find a perl program (for example a command-line tool) that does some task that you are interested in (for example moving data to or from a database or extracting content from HTML). Try it out, see what it does, and figure out how it does that.

Then think of some related thing that it doesn't do, but would be useful (for instance, reporting summary statistics when it's done), and modify it so that it does this new thing (either in addition to, or instead of, what it already does).

For every programming language I have ever used effectively, it is the case that I really started to learn it by working with someone else's code, changing a usable tool to do something new that I wanted. This has worked for me many times, and I recommend it.

[props]

Hi firewall00

I am a special person not like the others in this site, because i am in the same situation as you are: i am new to Perl :)

I started a year ago reading Perl. First Learning Perl , then Intermediate Perl and finally Programming Perl ( the famous "Camel Book"). I was understanding most of the information contained in these books, but i couldn't write any code at all. I was understanding the concept of multidimensional hashes but i couldn't write a simple subroutine.

Finally i talked to a very experienced programmer as many Monks in this site and advised me as follows: Do not read books just for reading them, You improve only your reading ability not your programming skill. Better start building an application that you like. Then make it better and better.

In my case i own a little cafe in Greece. So im currently writing a GUI for managing expences and income. I know i can download a 100 times better aplication for free from the net but i want to learn Perl and use the software i create. Makes me fell better!

Additionally the process of mastering a programming language is very time consuming. We have lots of things to learn both of us. Look at the bright side, we have the luck to be part of this Monastery and talk to other Monks to solve issues and problems we face.

Good luck !!!!

[firewall00]

Thanks for all ,, you are very helpful people and you rae really saints of the perl
ya all of you are right i must choose a real life sitiuations and solve it
iam going to do 2 somthing iam going to read programming perl and also i will start in code to add domains in named.conf file and make zone file :)
if i find any thing itis difficult to me am going to ask monks and i knew all of you are great


Thanks

[i-blis]

Think of it as learning a foreign language, Tibetan for example.

Upon finishing the best grammar and exercise book available, it is quite unlikely that you would be able to speak a word. Even to understand actual texts. What you need then, is to dive into the real word.

Listening carefully to what others say or write, taking note of their accent and style. Starting slowly to make your own sentences, building up your own idiom. In a first step, imitation is of great help.

Don't be afraid of mistakes, to the contrary, they will help you in gaining better fluency. Don't be ashamed of counting on fellow monks to correct you. No doubt indeed that your first confident will be your perl compiler (assuming you turned strict and warnings pragmas).

Languages do have varieties and levels (idioms and modules in the case of Perl). Choose those who fits your personality and goals, then learn them step by step. You'll be surprised at how soon you'll be able to express yourself. And don't worry, you'll write poetry or what ever religious treaties in due time.

If your main plan is to administrate a monastery, just give yourself basic tasks and try to achieve them. Post your attempts. People will help you.

Welcome to Perlistan. Regards.

[naikonta]

Congratulations on finishing the book and all its exercises! Now when you sit down thinking about what to do, some of your experiences on the exercises must have been plugged into your mind somehow, because that's what I believe exercising is for. It's designed to, among others, make you feel at home, or in your words, "felt my self familiar with perl".

Feeling familiar to me is more than enough to keep the fear far away, and start something. The only thing you need is really try it for youself. You already have the task, writing scripts to administrate a Linux box. Be more specific on a particular task, be sure to know what you really need to accomplish, step by step. Do you need to read lines? Do you need to extract some specific string from those lines? Do you have to show the output to the screen? Or, do you need to keep the result in a file? Whatever you need to do, I believe you already did most (if not all) of them. Just map them to the exercising you tried. And start typing.

If you get stuck, you know where to ask to. Before you do that, be sure to check relevant docs, right in front of you, with man or perldoc programs. It it's about subroutines, you can view man perlsub or perldoc perlsub. If it's about data or variable, perldata is there. If it's about a specific function, then perldoc -f function_name is available. And if you don't know what docs to read, start with man perl or perldoc perl.

[moritz]

Many people fear what they don't know. So the best advice is to learn, learn, learn.

If you haven't read it yet perlintro is a good reading. And if you are serious you'll buy a book, for example "Programming Perl".

[rowdog]

I hate to quote an ad but "just do it". Try to use perl to actually accomplish things. If you fail, you can use perlmonks, the chatterbox, and IRC to get us to help.

I'm not sure that programming language acquisition is really the same as spoken language acquisition but I didn't really learn Spanish until I spoke it everyday. Speak perl everyday and, in time, you'll get it.

PS: "No Fear" ... to quote another ad, sigh

[pajout]

Try to recognize, if you have problems with creating algorithms or with writing it in Perl language.

My progress was rapidly increased when I implemented my own algorithms solving something very very interesting, just for fun...

[samizdat]

answer: relax, and give yourself time to get there.

[mwah]

firewall00: 

when it comming to writing my own code to perfome specific task i cannot and i feel my self fear of writting the code seems to be very confused huh

You should accept that (as expected).

_{Modification (this passage did upset some of the german monks, so I take it out - sorry for causing any inconvenience):}
It's like the young Waffen-SS soldier(*) (speaking from german perspective) got through the courses how to handle his MG-42 and how inferior the Russians should be viewed and all that.

It's like the young USMC soldier in the pacific theater of operations (PTO) got through the courses how to handle his .50 Browning gun and how inferior the Japs should be seen and all that.

But then, the first time he is "really there", on his battlefield outpost, the power of a battle-hardened Japanese Infantry division, supported by artillery descents upon him.

Will he run away? Maybe. Some of his comrades did after seeing this the first time. This is a quite normal reaction. But there is another solution. He looks accurately how and what his older, keen and more experienced buddies do in this situation.

So he trusts them and concentrates on the tasks he already know.
^{(Unfortunately, thats the last thing we heard from him.)}

What I tried to say is: in solving an arbitrary request to do something profane with the *tool* you started to master, you show who you are. One real recipe for you would then be: Think about "real world problems" of other people, like e.g. posted here on PerlMonks, try to solve them as you can and compare your solutions with the code provided by the saints here (and learn from that).

Do that every day - at least for one hour. After one year, you will stay calm confronted with almost every task in this field.

Regards

mwa

_{* => sometimes I tend to draw outrageous   comparisons in order to make myself as clear as I can ...
(but if you are interested in this stuff, read ISBN 0691008531)}

[firewall00]

thanks for your valuable words
but what do you think about road map for that or what i can do or read to support that needs ((i need perl in scripting to help me to write scripts to administarte linux ,, and to working with itis configuration files .))

[mwah]

(i need perl in scripting to help me to write scripts to administarte linux ,, and to working with itis configuration files

What exactly are you trying to do now?

There are good references all over the net, e.g.:

* Automating UNIX system administration with Perl
* Linux System Administration and Configuration

and books:

* Automating UNIX and Linux Administration (not only w/Perl)

But there are zillions more. How about to formulate *one* *small* problem first, which we may try to solve together?

mwa

[Cop]

Resolve some real problem, then you will see how things work together. It takes time, no worries.

Maqke sure that others can understand your code, never pay any attention to any tricky code, those are garbages.