James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
I'm no perl-wizard but I have spent a few years writing perl code, and I
would recommend something other than perl -- unless you already have a
good reason to specifically use perl. Perl is famous for text handling,
but other languages are nearly as good. Perl is famous for one-liners,
but only after you get fairly proficient. There are certainly other
pluses, but in each case, I find it hard to send beginners off chasing
them.
I would suggest python (my favorite) or maybe tcl.
Hmmm, maybe lua? (Andy:?)
??? or maybe even pascal ???
==> Hey Gus: does delphi fit in this context.
I would also suggest skipping sed and awk (unless you want to see some
of the ideas that led to perl). Both are good things for sysadmins to
have in their toolbags, but I think for an ordinary mortal just doing
occasional scripting, I would jump from shell to (say) python.
Regards,
..jim
And "for an ordinary mortal just doing [more than] occasional scripting"?
I've never programmed anything with a gui interface, and that certainly
has some appeal to me, just to be *able* to do it if nothing else.
Because of that, Tcl-Tk has had some appeal to me.
But other than BASIC, FoxBase, and a little Perl, I am fairly much
unfamiliar with what would be a good way to go. I wouldn't mind getting
to a level where I could code for pay. But I doubt that I could do that
with BASIC or FoxBase.
I did at one time start going thru an online tutorial on Base (OO). But
then I hit a big snag when some problem in my installation prevented me
from doing what the tutorial was telling me to do. I finally got tired
of trying to fix the snag, and was pressed to move on to other things
that needed my attention.
Altho I *did* sell a BASIC program once. It took 4 hours to make it
work, another 2 hours to build in redundancy checks and make it slick
(and compiled it into a standalone EXE). I sold it for $150. The best
part is that the customer was thrilled that what previously took about
an hour each month *now* only took entering a command and waiting for
the printer to finish. When I demonstrated it, I typed the command and,
before pressing enter, I said "Don't blink.", and after a slight pause
hit enter. Without pause, the dot matrix printer roared into action.
They were quite thrilled! About 3 minutes later, the printer was
finished. They praised me for it every time I went to that store,
especially the old lady who previously had to do it by hand.
--
Ralph
--------------------
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--Benjamin Franklin
It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are
likely to end up with neither.
--Bruce Schneier
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