On Feb 19, 2011, at 6:23 AM, Gerald Cornish wrote: > Hi Guys here's the situation... > > I've downloaded & installed ActivePerl, ActivePython, ActiveTCL. > > Now, as an ex mainframe programmer (Cobol, Fortran, S3, etc) I am out of my > comfort zone - big time. > > Having done the install I see no programs in Applications folder so I guess > this is a Terminal job. > > I would like to try my hand at these options, nothing big just small useful > utilities for my own and the family's benefit. > > Where do I start? How do I get to see a place to input code? Is there a good > link to explain the structure of these languages and how to use them?
Why these particular versions? Both Python and Perl come pre-installed in OS X (they're important tools for the OS a lot of Apple's own stuff is written in perl and python), and ActiveState's stuff is non-standard in many, many ways (it's mainly used for Windows deployments). With lots of third party stuff (like the gazillions of perl add-ins at Cpan.org) you'll constantly get questions form folkls about 'I have active state, this particular thing doesn't work') Yes the stuff is done via terminal; I write a lot of perl on the job. I use BBEdit as my programming editor, then just run the scripts via terminal. You can also use TextWrangler. Here's a GUI IDE for perl: <http://padre.perlide.org/> Apple recommends Eclipse <http://developer.apple.com/tools/eclipse.html> Here's a bunch for Python: <http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors> As for good tutorials there's tons. I like Dive Into Python <http://diveintopython.org/> which has some other tutorial links there. For Perl there's always the Camel (Programming Perl) and the Llama (Learning Perl) <http://oreilly.com/perl/> (Oreilly's programming books all have various woodcut animals on the cover, and the Camel is a well known one) I like Perl more but that's sheerly out of laziness, it's the one I use the most anymore and has become my primary programming language. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Books, a group for those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books). The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
