[pm-h] Introductory Perl Help

[rlharris at oplink.net]

> On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 10:04 PM, G. Wade Johnson
> <gwadej at anomaly.org>wrote:
[snip]
>I would like to give a little different take on this though.
[snip]
>One of the things I'm trying to correct with this
>class/hangout/whatever is an impression I never thought I would have to
>deal with for Perl. In our meetings, we focus on the big, powerful
>applications of Perl. We tend to ignore the little, useful scripts.
[snip]
>For most of my career (and most of the time I've "programmed Perl" I
>have not "made my living programming Perl". I have normally used Perl
>as necessary to solve problems that were too hard in the language I was
>being paid to program in.
>
>What got me using Perl was the way I could whip up a quick-and-dirty
>script to remove an annoyance. Later, as I solved more problems with
>Perl, I began to move toward mastering the language.
[snip]
>G. Wade

That is a thought-provoking post, Wade.

Sometimes the most valuable member of the team is the guy who has the
perspective to envision and apply unorthodox methods (such as Perl
scripts) to solve problems for which orthodox approaches are
inadequate or too difficult, or problems which have others in the team
stumped.

When a railway locomotive is derailed, who is the more valuable man?

    (1) The engineer who is competent at hauling freight and
    passengers, meeting schedules, and blowing the horn, but has not
    the foggiest notion of how to get the locomotive back on the
    track?

OR

    (2) The lowly mechanic who -- working alone and using little more
    than wooden wedges and a sledgehammer -- has the expertise to get
    the derailed locomotive back onto the track, but lacks many of the
    skills of the engineer?

P.S. On YouTube there is a video which demonstrates the procedure.

In the Bible is found a short dissertation which is of general
applicability; the dissertation gets to the heart of the matter;
consider I Corinthians 12:14-26:

    For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says,
    Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body, it is not
    for this reason any the less a part of the body.  And if the ear
    says, Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body, it is
    not for this reason any the less a part of the body.  If the whole
    body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were
    hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  But now God has
    placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He
    desired.  If they were all one member, where would the body be?
    But now there are many members, but one body.  And the eye cannot
    say to the hand, I have no need of you; or again the head to the
    feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, it is much truer
    that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are
    necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less
    honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less
    presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more
    presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed
    the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked,
    so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members
    may have the same care for one another.  And if one member
    suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored,
    all the members rejoice with it.

I submit that the proper way to view Perl is to see that it is but one
component of a system, and moreover, a component which is often is vital
to proper function of the system.

RLH