Online introduction to Perl Unix scripting?
November 4, 2004 11:13 AM   Subscribe

Looking for a reasonably quick introduction to Perl Unix scripting, preferably online.
posted by Krrrlson to Computers & Internet (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
perl.com has got a nice intro.
posted by bachelor#3 at 11:36 AM on November 4, 2004


Perlmonks has some excellent tutorials, and the Perl man pages are a great reference as far as syntax goes. And if you're new to Perl, you probably need to know that whatever you want to do, most of the heavy lifting has already been done by a CPAN module. Good luck!
posted by arto at 11:42 AM on November 4, 2004


Best answer: The perl man pages are a nightmare for beginners. You need the O'Reilly "Learning Perl" book, which isn't on-line. You should buy it, but I hear that if you Google a certain phrase you might find something...
posted by nicwolff at 1:29 PM on November 4, 2004


Response by poster: Thanks everyone!
posted by Krrrlson at 3:50 PM on November 4, 2004


Check out learn.perl.org. Ditto nicwolff, Learning Perl is a great book, but better for someone with at least a little programming experience. If you're a complete beginner, get Beginning Perl, Second Edition (I've heard some complaints about the first edition, but not the second.)

After Learning Perl, the obvious next step would be its sequel, of sorts, Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules.

If you don't mind reading from a screen and don't want to read pirate versions off the net, O'Reilly sells a "Perl CD Bookshelf" that has both the Learning Perl books, plus Programming Perl (the canonical reference), and two other valuable volumes, Mastering Regular Expressions and The Perl Cookbook for $100 list.

Ditto arto, check Perlmonks' tutorials. Or look for articles there on How to Learn Perl. Also, participate there. If you post a question that shows you did your homework and are stumped, people'll bend over backwards to help you. (Then again, if one asks a question that demonstrates that Perlmonks is being used as a course of first resort without having done any other research, they won't.)

Finally, Mark-Jason Dominus' Perl Paraphernalia has lots of great stuff, some of it advanced, but some of it tutorial.

Have fun!
posted by Zed_Lopez at 5:01 PM on November 4, 2004


Absolutely read Learning Perl. You can read it online with an Orielly Safari subscription, but I've found having the book on hand is useful.

I went through learning perl in about 2 weeks, and was able to be immediately productive at a new, all-Perl, development job (I've been in software development for awhile, so YMMV).

There are a few essential concepts such as context, hashes, common perl shortcuts, and regular expressions that the book will give you an excellent start in understanding. Everything else you can figure out as you need to.

Do all of the exercises at the end of each section too.
posted by jsonic at 7:20 PM on November 4, 2004


I just found an on-line book aimed at beginners:

Picking Up Perl
posted by Zed_Lopez at 1:53 PM on November 5, 2004


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