SPUG: Windows Newbie Needs Help

[Lorraine Johnson]

Bogdan,

There is an EXCELLENT Perl book for new programmers:  "Elements of
Programming With Perl" by Andrew L. Johnson (no relation), published by
Manning Press.  (Amazon reviews at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1884777805/qid=970157477/sr=1-26/002-
1686649-5448866)  Unlike most books on Perl, this book assumes no prior
programming experience.  The only thing that he misses in the early going
is that the "shebang" line under Windows is 
	#! perl
(if the perl directory is in your path environment variable) instead of 
	#! /user/bin/perl
(specifically pointing to the perl directory) for most versions of Unix.

In addition to discussing Perl, the book is full of practical information.
The first couple of chapters go over general topics such as variable naming
style, structuring for readability, comments, and developing programs.  He
covers installing the ActiveState port of Perl (this will set your path
variable correctly).  A later chapter describes installing modules from
CPAN.  Manning maintains a nice Web site for the book, which has a
discussion/ask-the-author forum.  I posted some questions on a topic and
the author usually replied by the next day.

I've seen this book at both Borders and Barnes & Noble, so you can check it
out before you buy.  In my opinion, this book is better for beginners than
"Learning Perl for Win32 Systems,"  because "Learning Perl" really assumes
prior programming experience.  You will probably want to get it later,
though, because it IS a very good book.

Best of luck!

Lorraine  (<1 year at Perl)

At 06:32 PM 9/27/00 +0000, Tim Maher/CONSULTIX wrote:
>Hello SPUG,
>my name is Bogdan Vladu and I am currently trying to educate myself in Perl. 
>I am using "Perl for Dummies 2nd edition" by Paul Hoffman.
>Although the book makes sense (so far ...) I am unable to put in practice 
>what I am reading (learning ?!).
>I am a totally neophite to the programming field and my only experience with 
>programming was in college, struggling to write and understand "Fortran".
>Anyway, I installed Perl version 5.005 on Windows '95 but have no clue how 
>to proceed to run loaded programs (from the accompanying CD-Rom) or basic 
>commands such as "print".
>For example, while typing (this is the actual line on the ms-dos prompt)
>the reply appears.
>
>C:\Perl>perl print "This is a string!" ;
>Can't open perl script "print": No such file or directory
>
>I am aware that I might be stupid but I know that I installed the CD-Rom 
>correctly and it seems that numerous files and short programs have been 
>installed on the hard drive.
>
>If you guys have can help me with this matter or at least with suggestions 
>for a better book that will help me learn Pearl  I'm all ears.
>
>Thank you !
>
>Bogdan Vladu
>bvladu at hotmail.com
>
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...................................
J. Lorraine Johnson
SAIC/Sea Technology
lorraine at nw.saic.com
v: (425) 482-3316
f: (425) 485-5566
http://www.nw.saic.com

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