Brand New to Perl

Hello all,
I am absolutely brand new to perl, but I understand that it is a very
important aspect of web development to create dynamic web pages.

I am kind of short on money, being a college student and all, and I have
looked at several bookstores for books about perl and:
1. I don't know what topics I should be looking for to learn the basics
of the perl language.
2. Most of the books are too much for me to shell out right now
(especially with my lack of understanding of what I should be looking for).

So far, I understand enough that I have downloaded free scripts and used
them on my locally hosted site, but obviously that puts me at the mercy of
the availibilty of free scripts and also of the scripts' authors code. I
really want to learn perl so that I can begin to code on my own, but I am
clueless as to where to begin.

I figured out by reading many of the posts that there are many perl experts
that post here. So, if anyone has written tutorials or any info on perl
that are available on the web, please include the links. Also, if anyone
knows of some really good and thorough web pages for beginners of perl,
please alert me to these. If there are some generally accepted "required"
books on perl, then I would like to hear about those as well and I will
look at getting those as soon as I can.

Thank you for all the suggestions,
Matt

re: Brand New to Perl

noone wrote:[color=blue]
> I am absolutely brand new to perl,[/color]

Ok. Nothing wrong with that.
[color=blue]
> but I understand that it is a very
> important aspect of web development to create dynamic web pages.[/color]

True as well, but totally unrelated to Perl.
Perl and "dynamic web pages" are like airplanes and the color green. Yes,
there are airplanes that are painted green. But there are many airplanes in
other colors, too. And there are many other green things beside airplanes.
[color=blue]
> I am kind of short on money, being a college student and all, and I
> have looked at several bookstores for books about perl and:
> 1. I don't know what topics I should be looking for to learn the
> basics of the perl language.
> 2. Most of the books are too much for me to shell out right now
> (especially with my lack of understanding of what I should be looking
> for).[/color]

Doesn't your public library have programming books? And if not I'm sure they
can order them through the library exchange system.
[color=blue]
> So far, I understand enough that I have downloaded free scripts and
> used them on my locally hosted site, but obviously that puts me at
> the mercy of the availibilty of free scripts and also of the scripts'
> authors code. I really want to learn perl so that I can begin to
> code on my own, but I am clueless as to where to begin.[/color]

Ok, there are many things you are mixing up and which you should keep well
separated in your mind.

- Are you new to programming, too, (you didn't say) or just new to Perl?
If you are new to programming then start with "Learning Perl" (no need to
buy it, this book is so introductory that you won't use it any more after a
few months).
If you are familiar with programming, but new to Perl, then "Programming
Perl" is a good start. Buy it if you can afford it, it will serve you well
as handy desktop reference for years to come.

For further book recommandation on Perl just check the FAQ: "perldoc -q
book"

Now, that covers the Perl part, but there is more.
For web pages you obviously need a book about HTML. You should ask in a NG
that actually deals with HTML.
And for dynamic web pages you should ask in a NG that actually deals with
CGI. Can't help you there. Although I've been using Perl for over 10 years
I've never written a single CGI script.

jue

re: Brand New to Perl

Jürgen Exner wrote:[color=blue]
> noone wrote:[color=green]
>> I understand that [perl] is a very important aspect of web
>> development to create dynamic web pages.[/color]
>
> True as well, but totally unrelated to Perl.
> Perl and "dynamic web pages" are like airplanes and the color
> green. Yes, there are airplanes that are painted green. But there
> are many airplanes in other colors, too. And there are many other
> green things beside airplanes.[/color]

Programming languages can be more or less suitable for web
applications, and I did think that Perl is considered to be suitable
for that application area (as well as for many other apps).

Even if I see the need to explain the distinction between Perl and
CGI, it should better be done in a way that doesn't cause further
confusion, and possibly discourages people from using Perl for web apps.

--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl