[LA.pm] Next step for a newbie

[Ron Smith]

Jeremiah,

I've already done some of the things you mentioned. I
have the Llama book and have gone through the majority
of the chapters there. I also have the Camel book and
the Cookbook and found myself having to refer to all
three from time to time. As for the other books you
mentioned, I will definitely be looking into those.
I've almost bought "Object Oriented Perl", by Conway,
several times. I think the reason I didn't buy it was
because I though it was over my head, at the time.
I'll certainly give it a second.

Another interesting thing you mention was setting up a
site to demo my work. I've though about doing just
that, lately. One of the issues I have regarding that
is I would need to find an *inexpensive* host that
supports mod_perl and the .NET technologies as well.
If you, or anyone else, can point me in the right
direction I'd appreciate it.

Todd,

Where would I go to begin getting info on how to get
involved with an open-source project? The thing I'm a
little concerned with is, are my skills up to a level
where I can make a meaningful contribution.

Also, I don't have any problem starting at *any*
capacity. In the past, on previous jobs, I've written
short one-off programs to do specific things like
locating different versions of the same file or
tracking disk usage ...etc. Besides, things like that
are fun to do, to me.

Ranga,

Thanks for the tip. I do need to explore the different
modules available, so far I've just been sticking to
the modules that come packed with Perl. Or, maybe I
just haven't written anything that would require the
addition of a module; it's probably the later. :)


Bjørn,

I took a look at "Effective Perl Programming" from the
link in your response and was impressed with the Table
of Contents and the Index of the book. On that alone,
I'll probably buy it. Thanks, for the pointer.

David,

What I've experienced, so far, is that I'm not
particularly able to remember everything I've picked
up, in the way of programming knowledge, so I remember
where I *saw* the solution to a problem. Or, I'll
retain the concept to the solution of a particular
problem then look up the details. Does anyone else
have that experience?

Joshua,

There seems to be a meeting of the minds on attending
the YAPC conferences. It looks like it will be in
Chicago this year. So, I won't be able to make it this
time around, but I'll certainly keep them in mind.

I have to say a word of thanks, to everyone that
responded to my original post. I get such a kick out
of using Perl that it has motivated me to pursue a new
career path, and that's saying a lot.


Ron Smith
geeksatlarge at yahoo.com