«

Is the best way to learn perl to start with perlintro and then move in a
sequence through the tutorials? Where can I get the meanings of the
functions? man open works with the unix API and man fopen with C, but what
about perl functions?

B
man key for example doesn't work.

"Bill Cunningham" <> wrote:
> Is the best way to learn perl to start with perlintro and then move in a
>sequence through the tutorials?

Get yourself a book. If you are an experienced programmer in some other
language then "Programming Perl" is a very good start. If you are new to
programming itself then 'Learning Perl" is often highly recommended.

>Where can I get the meanings of the
>functions? man open works with the unix API and man fopen with C, but what
>about perl functions? man key for example doesn't work.

Use perldoc:
perldoc -f open
perldoc -f keys

To learn more about perldoc use perldoc
perldoc perldoc

And for frequently asked question, e.g. about what books there are use
perldoc -q books

jue

Jürgen Exner <> wrote:
> "Bill Cunningham" <> wrote:
> > Is the best way to learn perl to start with perlintro and then move in a
> >sequence through the tutorials?

> Get yourself a book. If you are an experienced programmer in some other
> language then "Programming Perl" is a very good start. If you are new to
> programming itself then 'Learning Perl" is often highly recommended.

Before you start spending lots of time trying to "help" this
Bill Cunningham character I'd recommend that you all spend a
short bit of time on checking his posting history over the
years in other newsgroups (like, for example, comp.lang.c or
comp.unix.programmer) and see for yourself if you can detect
a certain pattern. I think I can predict with high certainty
that he will never master the most basic elements of Perl -
same as he never seems to manage to write a working C pro-
gram after years of coaching - it looks as if he actually
gets worse at it over the years...

Regards, Jens
--
\ Jens Thoms Toerring ___
\__________________________ http://toerring.de

Henry Law wrote:

> Done, thank you; forewarned. Now let's see; who knows, things might
> be different.

I've had a lot of trouble with C over the years but I am still trying to
master it. I'm not a professional programmer but I've read about perl and
I'm still checking things out. I have invested so much time in C I'm not
going to leave it. Even knowing how to program things in C I don't know
algorithms and that's needed for proper programing. I do some programming in
the unix api. Like I am studying sockets. Python has been suggested to me by
others over the years and I looked at it and perl just seemed better. What
can I say I try.

Bill

Jürgen Exner wrote:

> Get yourself a book. If you are an experienced programmer in some
> other language then "Programming Perl" is a very good start. If you
> are new to programming itself then 'Learning Perl" is often highly
> recommended.
>
>> Where can I get the meanings of the
>> functions? man open works with the unix API and man fopen with C,
>> but what about perl functions? man key for example doesn't work.
>
> Use perldoc:
> perldoc -f open
> perldoc -f keys

Ok my linux implementation has perldoc in it's own package. I have it
installed now.

> To learn more about perldoc use perldoc
> perldoc perldoc
>
> And for frequently asked question, e.g. about what books there are use
> perldoc -q books
>
> jue

"Bill Cunningham" <> wrote:
>[...] Even knowing how to program things in C I don't know
>algorithms and that's needed for proper programing.

In other words: you are and have been putting the cart before the horse.
Maybe you should look into learning programming first. Once you
understand that then switching to a different programming language is
usually the easy part (yes, there are exceptions).

jue

On 2012-10-30, Jürgen Exner <> wrote:
> "Bill Cunningham" <> wrote:
>>[...] Even knowing how to program things in C I don't know
>>algorithms and that's needed for proper programing.
>
> In other words: you are and have been putting the cart before the horse.
> Maybe you should look into learning programming first. Once you
> understand that then switching to a different programming language is
> usually the easy part (yes, there are exceptions).
>
> jue


I feel a certain affinity with the OP. My first
programming was punched cards (at school), after that
I taught myself BASIC on a ZX Spectrum. I went on an
'Introduction to C course' intending to take the
follow-on course but the college dropped it saying
there was no demand. And there my education stopped
until I bought Learning Perl.

I've only ever learnt programming as part of learning
a programming language. I'd never considered it
possible to learn programming without a language
being associated. Could you point me (and the OP if
he's interested) in the direction of suitable /
relevant material?


Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

On 2012-10-31 15:10, Justin C <> wrote:
> On 2012-10-30, Jürgen Exner <> wrote:
>> "Bill Cunningham" <> wrote:
>>>[...] Even knowing how to program things in C I don't know
>>>algorithms and that's needed for proper programing.
>>
>> In other words: you are and have been putting the cart before the horse.
>> Maybe you should look into learning programming first. Once you
>> understand that then switching to a different programming language is
>> usually the easy part (yes, there are exceptions).
>
>
> I feel a certain affinity with the OP. My first
> programming was punched cards (at school), after that
> I taught myself BASIC on a ZX Spectrum. I went on an
> 'Introduction to C course' intending to take the
> follow-on course but the college dropped it saying
> there was no demand. And there my education stopped
> until I bought Learning Perl.
>
> I've only ever learnt programming as part of learning
> a programming language. I'd never considered it
> possible to learn programming without a language
> being associated.

I don't think you can learn programming without a language (that would
be like learning to write novels without a language).

But you can't learn programming without algorithms either.

Programming is the art of finding algorithms and expressing them in a
formal language.

If you only learn what the elements of a programming language mean but
not how to put them together, you will never be able to program. If you
aren't able to analyse a problem, to find a repeatable way to solve the
problem (= an algorithm), you won't be able to program.

Actually writing down the algorithm in a specific language is easiest
part (although the devil can certainly be in the details), and it is
also mostly interchangable. If you understand a problem and its solution
and you can write it down in one language, you can also write it in any
other language with a little effort. (This is also apparent in the
existence of compilers: Compilers are programs which translate from one
programming language to another: They have existed for a long time, so
that's obviously a simple problem. But there are no programs which can
really program. So that's a hard problem which needs human creativity)

(I'm not even sure if everybody can learn to program: Some people just
don't seem to have the knack)

hp


--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Fluch der elektronischen Textverarbeitung:
|_|_) | Sysadmin WSR | Man feilt solange an seinen Text um, bis
| | | | die Satzbestandteile des Satzes nicht mehr
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | zusammenpaßt. -- Ralph Babel

Jürgen Exner wrote:

> In other words: you are and have been putting the cart before the
> horse. Maybe you should look into learning programming first. Once you
> understand that then switching to a different programming language is
> usually the easy part (yes, there are exceptions).

I can see right now that perl is going to be easier and higher level
than C. Now if I can do it. It C to check arrays you have to iterate through
the array elements by writing a program. It seems to be a lot easier in
perl. And I've got about as far as perlintro and I have to re-read it to se
what => is and "<" and ">" in the open function.

Bill

On 2012-11-05 20:34, Ben Morrow <> wrote:
> Quoth "Peter J. Holzer" <hjp->:
>> I don't think you can learn programming without a language (that would
>> be like learning to write novels without a language).
>
> Turing, Church and so on did; but most of us aren't in that category.

I would say they just invented their languages as they went along.

hp


--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Fluch der elektronischen Textverarbeitung:
|_|_) | Sysadmin WSR | Man feilt solange an seinen Text um, bis
| | | | die Satzbestandteile des Satzes nicht mehr
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | zusammenpaßt. -- Ralph Babel