DCPM: perl bounced

[Steve Marvell]

On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 08:50:12AM +0100, Matthew Browning wrote:

> Yeah, that is the case - we have a copy of Camel 3 (since Camel 2 went
> the same way as all my best CDs).  It is not a book for beginners, mind.
> An associate of mine has made the perfectly valid point that Programming
> Perl rather assumes you already know how to Program Perl.

I understand that that's what the Learning Perl book is for. Camel 1
was certainly for learning, but it's not the csae any more. I think it
is a good split.

Perl is one of those languages that can be used on _so_ many levels.

>  It is quite readable, however, and contains a good reference at the
> back.  I reckon there is an ORA book called `Mastering Regular
> Expressions' although I`ve never seen it in the bookshop.

I don't have it, having already mastered them :), but I've just asked
a mate who has. He said that he gained little other than learning how
they are parsed, a thing we've already mentioned is in Camel 3. 

He also says he uses perldoc perlre for reference :)

> To follow the thread, personally I prefer to look stuff up in a book
> than man or perldoc etc, must be living in the dark ages still.

I love books, but find them annoying when they are badly indexed or
incomplete. I tend to use books to learn, rather than reference for
perl. I do use the pocket reference sometimes.

I remember doing some perl work on a HP machine. HPUX 10 was shipped
with perl 4 and no manuals. There was no internat access, so my old
perl 4 reference card came in very useful indeed.

Steve