- Perl.com, one of the largest Perl Web sites, offers onsite training. Course costs, outlines, and other relevant information can be located at www.perl.com.
- Perl training is also offered on Stonehenge at www.stonehenge.com. According to its outline, the course presumes no prior knowledge of Perl and promises to provide comprehensive instruction on the basics of the language as well as lay the groundwork for more advanced Perl instruction. Course rates and instructor information is also available.
- The Institute for Advanced Technology Training offers Perl courses as well. Information can be found at www.itte.org. Courses include advanced Perl programming, CGI scripting with Perl, and accelerated Perl programming.
Self-Study Options
Obviously, the best place to start learning through self-study is to acquire the actual program. Perl is offered free of charge and can be obtained from the Perl Web page at www.perl.com. From this Web site, you can get the source code for both the Unix and Windows platforms.
Once you have the program, there are several good books to assist you in learning Perl. Refer to the "Beginner Book Titles" section provided later in this article for a list of Perl resources for beginning programmers.
Additional Resources
There are numerous resources available for those wanting to know more about Perl both online and in bookstores. The following sections describe some of the available resources.
Perl Jargon Buster
Before heading off into the world of Perl resources, it is a good idea to learn a few of the more common terms you may come across.
- CGI Script-CGI scripts are small programs used to allow Web sites to interact with databases and other applications.
- Object-Oriented Programming-Objects are smaller, independent programming modules that form the building blocks of a larger application. The later versions of Perl offer object-oriented programming capabilities.
- Interpretive Language-Perl is referred to as an interpretive language. For computer languages, there are two ways to translate and prepare high-level code to be executed as programs: the first is with the use of compilers and the second is with interpreters.
Books
Reference and introductory level books can augment the online Perl resources. The following is a list of a few available books.
Beginner Book Titles
- Cozens, Simon, Peter Wainwright. Beginning Perl. Wrox Press Inc, 2000. ISBN: 1861003145.
- Walsh, Nancy, and Linda Mui (editor). Learning Perl/Tk: Graphical User Interface with Perl (O'Reilly Nutshell). O'Reilly & Associates, 1999. ISBN 1565923146.
- Sebesta, Robert W. A Little Book on Perl. Prentice-Hall, 1999. ISBN 0139279555.
- Hall, Joseph N. Effective Perl Programming: Writing Better Programs with Perl. Addison-Wesley, 1998. ISBN 0201419750.
- Roselius, Rob. Advanced Perl Programming. DDC Publishing, Inc., 2000. ISBN: 1562439774.
- Wall, Larry, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant. Programming Perl (3rd Edition).O'Keitty & Associates, 2000. ISBN 0596000278.
- Holzner, Steven. Perl Black Book. The Coriolis Group, 1999. ISBN 1576104656.
- Holzner, Steven. Perl Core Language Little Black Book. The Coriolis Group, 1999. ISBN 1576104265.
- Johnson, Andrew L. Elements of Programming with Perl. Manning Publications, 1999. ISBN 1884777805.
Although Perl does not have the widespread use of some of the more mainstream programming languages, it is not lacking in its available resources. The Internet provides all the information and links required to access the Perl resources you need.
Newsgroups
Here are some Perl newsgroups to check out:
- comp.lang.perl
- comp.lang.perl.misc
- comp.lang.perl.modules
- comp.lang.perl. tk
- comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi
- Perl Month (www.perlmonth.com)-A Web-based monthly magazine featuring links, columns, and other information about the world of Perl.
- The Perl Journal (wrww.itknowledge.com/tpj)-A magazine devoted to Perl offering columns and articles from experienced Perl programmers. This site is informative as well as entertaining.
- Take Ten Minutes to Learn Perl (www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7331/ten_perl.html)-Beginners will find the instructions on this page easy to follow; a good place to start.
- Nik Silver's Perl Tutorial (http://agora.leeds.ac.uk/Perl)-This site provides good tutorials and is geared more toward Perl and Unix.
Perl.com (www.perl.com)-The Perl home page.Your first stop for information, news, and updates for Perl.The site is a good reference site and provides information on everything from training to additional online resources.
- O'Reilly (www.perl.oreilly.com)-This site offers everything from book resources to articles on Perl. A great site for general information and links to other Perl resource pages.
- Tlie Perl Archive (www.perlarchive.com/)-This page has several useful articles as well as some Perl tips and tricks. It is definitely worth a look.
- Perl Crawler (http://perlsearch.hypermart.net)-A search engine that is just for sites related to Perl and CGI programming.This tool can help focus your search and save you time when seeking Perl resources.
- Webring (http://nav.webring.org/cgi-bin/navcgi?ring=perl;list) A comprehensive list of available Perl Web resources for those that take the time to type this lengthy URL. You can also access this Web site from its home page at http://nav.webring.org; just follow the links.
Professional Associations provide a means of communicating with other programmers. The IPG (www.ipgnet.com) is a good resource for those wanting to connect with other programmers. It is not specific to Perl, but rather is a site for programmers in general. It may, however, provide links to Perl related Web sites. The site also includes a newsletter and a job search index. It appears to be a good site to bookmark and provides good links to further programming resources. There is a fee for membership.
Summary
Perl is a powerful programming language that, once learned, lets you quickly and easily develop Web applications. Perl is a general purpose programming language originally designed for Unix platforms but has expanded to virtually every other platform. Most programmers using Perl comment on its ease of use and its versatility. For these reasons, Perl enjoys a loyal following within the world of programmers.
