Hi Beginners and Scott,
I think I qualify as an "oldie" (in as when I learned to program - 1968,
Autocoder) and a "newie" (in as when I became aware Perl might be a fun
language to learn - 2000). In between I have been doing not a lot of
programming per se. But in the last couple of years exposure to *NIX and
then *sh, sed and awk have sparked my thirst for some "recreational
programming". Note that I have had NO C experience, and just some early
(Apple) Pascal.
All this is in support of my practical experience of the books I bought.
First The Camel. Went to read it and thought "Whoa, I've been away too
long!"
Then (hang the expense) The Complete Reference Perl (Brown; pub
Osborne/McGraw Hill) - found it difficult, and I think it's got a number of
typos in critical places. I'll go back, maybe, when I really do need to
know about threads 8-)
Then (I really needed to get something working, at work!!) to Perl for
Dummies. I found it an acceptable start (how's this - I bought it because
the shop didn't have The Llama, and I had a free weekend 8-( but again,
some typos and examples I found difficult to "get the point".
Then I finally succumbed and got The Llama out of my employer's library.
If you know lots about programming (and I mean "modern" languages such as C,
C++, Java and the like) then I think you could skip The Llama, but otherwise
I think it (The Llama) gets you into the right frame of mind for Perl. It
made a big difference for me.
Now The Camel is making lots of sense.
Murray Webster
Database Administrator
EDS Australia.
PS: I've got Perl in a Nutshell - which is my first point of call for
"Reference".
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, 16 June 2001 2:01
To: Perl Beginners (E-mail)
Subject: RE: Reading versus Referencing Books
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Edwards [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Subject: RE: Reading versus Referencing Books
>
> I think it depends on how much experience you have with
> programming and the
> concepts of it as a whole.
>
True. I suppose I was making the assumption that everyone in the
audience
had such experience to begin with. If I'm not mistaken, "Programming Perl"
makes that assumption as well, which would certainly *not* make it a good
reference for learning programming in general.
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