Code critique

[Steve Lane]

Kevin Guidry wrote:
> >Nice, I like Steve's layout and I had never used Regexp::Common.
> 
>         Me, too.  Your layout, Steve, got me thinking about how to
> restructure the whole program to reduce reduncancy and make it easier to
> read.  I also have a feeling that I'll be digging through Regexp::Common
> to see what other wheels I won't need to reinvent.

i haven't used Regexp::Common either, though that's
no excuse as i've been told about it many times!
so yeah i would favor using that, too.

>         Question:  Where do ya'll turn when you have to, uh, do something
> new in Perl, something that you've never done before?

i usually turn to places like this.  when i was cutting
my teeth on Perl, the Waite Group had an excellent
perl-beginners list to accompany its Jon Orwant Perl book.
that list is not around anymore, so i often mail whichever
.pm group list i'm on that has been most active lately.

lots of people talk about Perlmonks... so be sure to
check it out.  i haven't delved into that site yet myself.

and having a good book or two that you trust is very
valuable.  my most-often used Perl book by far is
the Perl Cookbook.  it's not often that you'll have
a task to do that isn't clearly illustrated in the
Cookbook.  Joseph Hall's book, Effective Perl
Programming, is a wonderful book to just curl up with
and let soak in.  both of those books teach not only
"tricks" in Perl, but the common Perl idioms.  and i
feel that the key step on the way to mastering Perl
is learning its common idioms.

there is a perl-beginners mailing list.  i wasn't too
impressed with it the last time i looked; it had a lot
of noise, and too many truly dumb questions.  find
it and many many other Perl lists at http://lists.perl.org .

all that said... ask 10 Perl programmers this question
and you'll likely get 10 different answers.  i hope that
you and others use knoxville-pm-list as a first go, though.
this particular .pm group probably has the most potential
of the "mostly-quiet" .pm groups that i'm familiar with.
this list has a whole lot of very bright subscribers;
they just need more to talk about!  :)
--
Steve Lane <sml at zfx.com>
http://knoxville.pm.org/