Perl

ebowdia

Lads, I need to learn Perl for my job - software qa engineer. I have done some C & C++ before so I do have some programming knowledge. Should it take me long to get to grips with it? What's it like to use?

[CrimsonGhost]

Check out perlmonks.org. In particular look at their obfuscated code section.
Then run for the hills.
Ahh, it's not all that bad, but certain parts of it are quite different from anything you 'll have likely seen before if all you've looked at was some c/c++. Reg-exs in particular.
www.perl.com is a good place to start I suppose.

Washout

If you can learn the regex stuff though Perl will be a breeze and a great tool for QA as it will be cool to write scripts to run automated tests rather than manually go through things.

i develop automated tools using PERL for unit testing my work before hand off to QA.

davej

Perl has been described as the "duct tape" of the internet. It's syntax is a lot less rigid than the likes of c or java. There are tons of little short cuts for doing things that you'll only discover down the line. It's very good for things like parsing log files and general scripting. There are also hundreds of modules/libraries out there on cpan.org that have been building up for the past 15 years. Most cgi applications are written in Perl also.

It shouldn't take long at all to get to grip with the basics, it may take a little longer to master regex. The best way to learn is to read up a little bit and then get stuck into a project. I suggest you buy a "Teach yourself Perl in 21 days" type book and together with the built-in perldoc stuff for reference you should be fine..

davej

Zaltais

Buy 'Programming Perl' - or 'Learning Perl' if you want a gentle introduction.

Programming Perl is best if you already have a clue about programming though.

Loads of helpful sites out there:

http://perldoc.com
http://search.cpan.org

are the two most useful.

And join the Dublin Perl Mongers:

http://dublin.pm.org/

hostyle

If you're a Windows guy. download and install ActivePerl from Activestate Should get you started pretty well. If you need more help than provided in their documantation, get yourself a book - maybe O'Reilly "Learning Perl".