DCPM: perltutopen blues....

[Matthew Browning]

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On Monday 07 July 2003 10:43, Steve Marvell wrote:
> Matthew Browning wrote:
> > FWIW, I typically use IO::File because it allows you to treat a
> > filehandle as a scalar (by returning a reference to one) which is
> > cool if you want a painless way to build an array of them or chuck
> > them around various functions etc.
>
> I've never had a problem building an array of file handles.
>

...but this is *even* less a problem ;)
Subjective comment, I suppose.  Seems more natural to me.

> > > My script has gained a plethora of "options", including the
> > > ubiquitous "--debug" ;-)
> > >
> > > Maybe trying to learn emacs and perl at the same time was a bit
> > > ambitious, but it will be the best indented code I've written in
> > > ages.
> >
> > They make a good team:
> >
> > C-x h C-u M-| perl -pe 'EXPR' (Mark Jason Dominus)
>
> What does that do for you?
>

Inflict EXPR upon the whole buffer.

> > That is quite handy.  Also, check out M-x cperl-perldoc for
> > context-specific help.  Use cperl-mode, not the default perl-mode
> > with GNU Emacs.
>
> I still hve problems with even cperl-mode and certain regex, quoting
> or here doc indentation.
>

`Only perl can parse Perl'.  To be fair, I think it is pretty good, 
but, yeah, I have had both of those problems.  Also if I use square 
brackets in a qq thingy it sometimes b0rks.  Then, if I press return a 
couple of times it is okay again.  

I think the benefits outweigh the minor problems.


> > I guess the Camel is your best bet.  I have read pretty much all
> > the books there are on Perl (seriously) and if there is one that
> > really made me think *wow* it is `Object-Oriented Perl' by Damien
> > Conway (Manning).  Having said that, it does not address your
> > problem.
>
> I wowwed at Data Munging and Computer Science and Perl Programming.
>

I'm not being funny, truly, but I read `Data Munging with Perl' a 
couple of months ago expecting something really cool and was *very* 
disappointed - the first ~100 pages are basically a summary of some 
useful functions and then you get some stuff about some pretty 
well-known modules.  I was quite interested in the stuff on 
Parse::RecDescent but Conway's own essay is more comprehensive.  I 
always get in a bit of a pickle with binary data so I read Cross' 
chapter on it and what do you get?  Pack and Unpack - yeah, I know 
about that.  The whole book took me about three hours to read.

If you like `Computer Science and Perl Programming', try `Mastering 
Algorithms in Perl' - Orwant et al, it gets pretty deep.

I have `Games, Diversions and Perl Culture' here.  Sample article: 
`Perl and Nuclear Weapons Don't Mix'...hilarious.


Matthew Browning.

- -- 
http://matthewb.org/public_key.txt

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