[Techtalk] Perl/Python textbooks.

[Douglas Hunter]

fenchurch at exorsus.net wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I know a little bit of scripting - not very much, and what I do do is
> mostly yanked from MSDN and kludged around a bit. But I would like to
> learn how to do it properly, and I would really, really like the
> properness NOT to be VBScript.
> 
> Can anyone recommend some textbooks or learning resources (web based is
> fine) for Perl and/or Python? I can read code more complicated than I can
> write myself but I don't have much programming experience overall. A bit
> of java, no more.

Hi Fen,

[most of these comments are Perl specific]

I suppose the first thing to be said is that different folks consume and 
soak up information differently (duh ;-).  Perl was my first programming 
language, and "Programming Perl" was my first Perl book.  My biggest 
mistake when reading it the first time was that I did most of my reading 
away from the computer.  Whatever resources you end up choosing, I 
recommend staying close to a machine that has a perl installation while 
you are picking up the basics.

For me, reading "Programming Perl" and using the documentation that Perl 
ships with was a nice way to get started.  (Perl's documentation can be 
accessed via the `perldoc` command, which ships with Perl.  Try `perldoc 
perl` for a synopsis of the supplied documentation.)  Some folks find 
both "Programming Perl" and the supplied documentation too dense, 
without enough practical examples for learning.  Since you mentioned 
that you can read code more complicated than you can write, I'll 
recommend "The Perl Cookbook".  It's packed full of real world examples 
written by expert programmers.  The code is well written and well 
explained.

For a gentle introduction (and a text that is freely available online) 
you might want to try "Beginning Perl" 
(http://learn.perl.org/library/beginning_perl/).

If you get stuck, there are a couple of mailing lists and websites that 
you may find useful.  http://learn.perl.org/ has an email subscription 
widget in the right column that allows you to subscribe to some lists. 
beginners at perl.org (the beginners or beginners-digest checkboxes) can be 
quite helpful.  Perlmonks (http://perlmonks.org/) is also quite beginner 
friendly, normally has good answers to questions.  Its search 
functionality is great for looking up questions that you have a hunch 
may have been answered before.

Depending on the kind of work you do, you may want to pick up some 
specialty texts.  There are good Perl books out there that cover data 
analysis, systems administration, object oriented programming, network 
programming and the list goes on.

I believe it was Gene Spafford who recommended that one re-read the 
documentation for their toolset every six months.  I try to do that with 
Perl's supplied documentation (via perldoc).  I'm always amazed at how 
much I learn.

In that same vein, Jacinta Richardson (who I've seen on the 
programming at linuxchix.org list) has a company that has some great 
resources online at http://perltraining.com.au/.  I particularly like 
the "Perl Tips" mailing list.  It's like periodically re-reading the 
documentation, but in annotated bite sized chunks with great examples. 
There is a wealth of other information at the perltraining.com.au site. 
  You might find the complete text of their "Introduction to Perl" 
training manual useful: http://perltraining.com.au/notes/perlintro.pdf.

Lastly, I have to plug the programming at linuxchix.org list.  The ratio of 
information to noise is great, and the people are nice (does this place 
rock, or what?)

I hope that I haven't been too long winded, and that at least some of 
this message can be useful.  Good luck!

-- Douglas Hunter