All these points may or may not be true. I may or may not agree with you. But I find it hard to see how they make much of a difference in this context. He's talking about learning Perl, not learning how to write kernel modules.
I realize the original post was practically inviting a operating system flame-fest, but I'm still a bit disappointed to see someone light the first match. Maybe we can at least try to stay on topic and talk about things that directly relate to Perl.
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As you can see from many of my other posts on similar topics, revdiablo, I am a firm believer in the need to understand the entire system you program for. The particular syntax and tool set of Perl is of minimal importance in this bigger picture, though its flexibility certainly helps.
In my own case, my programming has been vastly simpler _because_ I understand my systems just a bit better than the average brawn. Perl is an excellent tool in my toolbox, and I give it credit for making some tough problems solvable.
Having a stable, predictable OS under your box's hood is crucial to success in a commercial enterprise. The OP was looking to do some of the same kind of things I've tackled, so I think my input was quite valid.
Feel free to downvote; that is your right and your responsibility. I've rarely been a politically correct beastie, and I'm unlikely to start now. The world is full of people who want their neat little boxes unbent; that's one of its major problems, and crying 'netiquette foul' when I was specifically answering the question borders on that, IMNSHO, though, as I say, your stripes earn you the right to opine however you please.
The OP is coming from COBOL, one of the most insular programming systems ever developed. Given that he was talking about nuances of system calls, I suspect that he has visions of apps that push Perl around corners that go a little bit further than CGI.pm intended. It is true that _learning_ Perl can be done on any scriptkiddie car that will run it, but deploying a Perl app successfully in a commercial environment demands stability, consistency, and predictability. When I have direct commercial success in such an endeavor, and FreeBSD has cushioned my @ss in doing so, should I not spread the word? And, yes, in a prior incarnation I was paid to proseletyze for BSD, but this success has come long after that time. I salute the people who specialize in Perl education and Perl usage, but I am not one of them. I will also freely admit that I can't hold a candle to most of the Saints here, including yourself, in the usage of raw Perl itself. When I as a pretty successful generalist sees a place to contribute something of value, I will do so. I would hope that the initial lines of my post were enough to establish that I expected my post to be taken as personal opinion. I do hope the OP finds it valuable, which was my intention.
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The particular syntax and tool set of Perl is of minimal importance in this bigger picture
I agree about the importance of the bigger picture. But the original question wasn't about the bigger picture, it was about one small portion of it. He wants to learn Perl. As I implied, and many of the other posts pointed out more explicitly, Perl is extremely portable among different operating systems.
So the fine details of which operating system he uses are important, and will impact his daily computer usage, but I believe they're outside the scope of this discussion. It's pretty obvious that you disagree with me on that one point, but hopefully now you'll actually understand the point I was trying to make. Or maybe you'll write another long post that I agree with 90% but still think this is the wrong place for it. :-)
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