[prog] Programming for QA folks

[Anna Baik]

Hi folks,

Have been lurking on this list for a while, but not posting as I'm
"not a programmer".  But recent posts have encouraged me to throw this
one out to the list for advice!

Could anyone suggest any good resources (either online or books) for
shell scripting/Perl - especially if they're aimed specifically at QA
folks?

What I've looked at already: the OReilly books "Learning Perl" and
"Learning the Korn Shell" - unfortunately the current version of
"Learning the Korn Shell" is very definite about it being specifically
for the 1993 version of the k shell, not the 88 version that is
installed on our servers.  I do have access to an online version of
the first edition though.  Those seem pretty good but I feel that the
more examples of code I see the better I'll learn so would love to
hear any other recommendations people might have.

Background info: I'm a software tester working for a group who support
a large "legacy" system in my company.   We'd really like to automate
some of our regression testing and so we've been looking at learning
shell scripting - specifically the Korn shell.  I guess Perl is the
other option.  At the moment I can munge together really noddy little
shell scripts to do simple things but it's nothing pretty, and I'd
really like to be able to put together stuff that'll be  easily
tweakable to accommodate changes by other folk, who may well be
looking at stuff long after I've moved on.  So any general advice on
good coding standards would be great!

I'm not sure whether or to try learning Perl - I get the impression
that although powerful it can be a bit hard to learn.  Also, I think
(but am not sure) that it would be more likely that any future testers
would already know shell scripting but might not know Perl - so that
would also be a reason to write stuff in Korn shell.  On the other
hand, I might be totally wrong and it might be *more* likely they'd
know Perl, not less!

cheers,
Anna