Learning Perl

Rollo Tamasi

Hi, after my exams are finished i want to learn a new language in the summer. Since I already have PHP to my name i would like to pick up another language that runs on Linux systems.

Could someone recommend me a decent book on learning Perl and maybe post up some decent links/tutorials also. I'm googling for more info on Perl and tutorials but thought i might as well get some input here too.

Cheers

PhantomBeaker

O'Reilly's "Learning Perl" gives a good intro to it. It might be a bit basic for ya if you're used to programming for a little while, but only for a little while. It doesn't get too bogged down in variables etc.

Once you're done with that, other O'Reilly books on perl are good for reference when it comes to the finer points.

Hope that helps,
Aoife

Blowfish

Ditto with PhantomBeaker, stick with O'Reilly, as they do very good stuff when it comes to Open Source/Linux stuff. In fact they put a lot of older versions of stuff online, and you can find the Perl bookshelf versions one and two here. That should keep you going for learning the basics, but perl has changed so you might consider buying something newer later on.

daymobrew

Try porting some of your PHP code to perl. Having a 'project' will help you learn quicker (instead of the boring, though useful, exercises at the end of the Learning Perl chapters).
This is what I did when moving from perl to CGI scripts (written in perl).

forbairt

Given that you have PHP ... I'd say the learning Perl book would be a bit basic ? ... maybe get yourself one of the O'Reilly cookbooks its what I did when I was learning it ..

akari no ryu

error9 wrote:

Given that you have PHP ... I'd say the learning Perl book would be a bit basic ? ... maybe get yourself one of the O'Reilly cookbooks its what I did when I was learning it ..

o.O?!?
Huh?
Perl is vastly more complex than PHP.

@P=split//,".URRUU\c8R";@d=split//,"\nrekcah xinU / lreP rehtona tsuJ";sub p{
 @p{"r$p","u$p"}=(P,P);pipe"r$p","u$p";++$p;($q*=2)+=$f=!fork;map{$P=$P[$f^ord
 ($p{$_})&6];$p{$_}=/ ^$P/ix?$P:close$_}keys%p}p;p;p;p;p;map{$p{$_}=~/^[P.]/&&
 close$_}%p;wait until$?;map{/^r/&&<$_>}%p;$_=$d[$q];sleep rand(2)if/\S/;print

For example.

Tobias Greeshman

Ever hear of using the enter key for a newline? :rolleyes:

akari no ryu

Ever hear of one line perl scripts?
I was being intentionally obscure in the choice of code samples taken from wikipedia in an attempt to highlight that "knowing" PHP is not enough to skip the basics of PERL.
In having an understanding of PHP, you know the basics of PERL syntax. That's all. End of story.
Picking up an O'Reilly's perl book is essential.

Art_Wolf

I have actually found the Perl for dummies book to be very good

interested

Either or both
'Learning Perl' and 'Programming Perl' are worth forking out for.
Agree with a 'project' but make it meaningful - HTTP response/request processing for String manipulation, reading / writing to a database for db access, generating reports to Excel for fun (I guess if you're learning a launguage during the summer it may be determined as fun)... all useful outside of college

see CPAN for resources
perl -MCPAN -e shell

If only all development groups used it things would be soooo much easier

fme

If you are into music, (and have the money to buy it) the Squeezebox wireless network music player by Slim Devices (http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html) uses open source software and addons for it are created in perl. Maybe a bit advanced but would make a good interesting pet project as there are plenty of other examples to compare with.