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What i am in search of is a practical learn approach to mastering perl

The real question is "What is the best way to learn programming in insert language here."

Hear (or reading) that question reminds me of an old joke:
Son:How do you get to Carnegie Hall, Dad?
Father:Practice son, lots of practice.

To my way of thinking languages are just syntax. Programming discipline is more important to me at least than syntax.

Regardless of the programming language the best way to master it as space_monk points out is to spend lots of time writing code. Learning programming technique independent of the language and applying those techniques to the language at hand requires practice. And lots of it.

I've been writing scripts and web applications in Perl since 1989. During that time period I've also been writing in FORTRAN, C, C++, Rocky Mountain Basic, X86 Assembler, Pascal, MC68xxx assembler, Java, JavaScript and I'm sure I've forgotten some languages. Once you have the basic techniques down you can write any application in any language. Some languages just make it easier to write certain applications. One one hand I'd hate to write a device driver in Perl (it can be done!) and on the other hand I'd hate to have to write a parser in assembly language.

I'm currently writing software to perform temperature regulation of a mash tun during grain mashing to make beer. It's being written in C++ against an Arduino embedded processor. I chose the Arduino because of the built in "sensors" that make my life easier as well as the fact there is a lot of public domain stuff out there to do what I need so I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Sort of analogous to CPAN.

Happy programming!

Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional
Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg

In reply to Re: What is the best way to master perl by blue_cowdawg
in thread What is the best way to master perl by 5plit_func

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