Re: My progress in Perl

"Try to learn by doing something that you need."

That is great advice.  Write a program to open your directories
given a key word.  I use that program dozens of times every day.


Mike


On 8/7/23 00:29, Olivier wrote:
> William,
>
>> I started testing some extensions of CPAN but I don't understand anything. I
>> only execute and then proceed with a book. The name of the book is
>> Beginning Perl of Curtis Ovid Poe.
>>
>> I started with a lot of passion but then lost interest, the monotony conquered
>> me. Actually I am learning references and Complex Data Structures in Perl.
> I never learned that in Perl and I have been using Perl for 25 years at
> least.
>
> I never learned Perl from a book either, I used it for some small
> tasks/projects and learned new bits when I needed them.
>
>> I have a lot of doubts in my mind:
>>
>> What is my purpose with this language?
> For me, Perl is an unvaluable tool for automatisation of system tasks,
> manage users, create accounts, etc. My last scripts are used to
> synchronize print quota between two very dissimliar systems.
>
>> In my country don't exist use of this language
>> I am boring and tired
> SpamAssassin is a large project in Perl, but even that is not using very
> complicated data structures. Perl was designed to manipulate reports,
> extract data and create new reports. It is not a general usage language.
>
> I am not sure it is the right way to try to learn Perl without any
> project. Try to learn by doing something that you need.
>
> Most of the CPAN extensions (modules), you don't need them, you will
> never need them unless you have a direct use for them. Also, depending
> on the operating system you are using, some of the Perl modules may be
> part of the packages distriubuted for your OS.
>
> Also, for me the real strength of Perl is the strong system of regular
> expressions, I have an extensive use for them in each of my scripts (a
> software produces some logs, I have to extract some significant lines
> from the logs, etc.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Olivier