What made you learn Perl?

Matt Wright made me learn perl.

I am a real estate investor and I frequented a forum for local investors in Dallas. The dates had been stuck in the year 2000 for more than a year. I wrote the webmaster that I could probably fix it and received no reply.

About the time I sent the email, I found a perl beginner's email group on Yahoo!. I knew from personal experience that the best way to learn was to teach. So I started answering questions beginners asked. In a few months I had learned perl enough to know I could fix the date problem on my favorite RE website.

Sometime later I was attending a meeting sponsored by AIREO (the website owners) and I met the webmaster. He sent me a copy of the Matt script they were using and I fixed the problem in a few minutes.

Like xmath I am a hobbyist programmer. I've never been paid for a programming assignment. Perl wasn't my first programming language (Radio Shack's Color Computer BASIC was), but it is by for the most useful one I use.

Charles K. Clarkson
--
Head Bottle Washer,
Clarkson Energy Homes, Inc.
254 968-8328