I am reading Perl Best Practices by Damian Conway and I am finding it very helpful and encouraging.
When I began reading it, it seemed that it wasn't for perl beginners who hadn't already established a style of programming. It sounded like it was more for experienced programmers who had already adapted certain habits that they can break by reading the book. I don't already have programming habits so I felt that maybe I didn't need to read this book. However, after reading the first 3 chapters, I have found it encouraging and a very good learning tool. I felt encouraged because some of the advice described some practices that I was already doing. I have had no formal training in Perl just reading books and hanging out on Perl Monks. Felt good to know that I was doing it "right".
Perl Best Practices is also educating me on how to do some things in Perl that I don't already know how to do nor how to approach being new to the language.
I just wanted to share how my initial thoughts of this book were wrong and I believe everyone should read this book new or old to programming!
Because of the initial feeling I wonder:
How many of you seasoned programmers have changed any of your habits because of this book? The advice seems really good to me, but I didnt' have any habits to break. I was trying to learn the "right" way before actually getting in too deep which is why I bought the book in the first place.