Thanks to everybody and all of your support and helpful links. I just got back from taking the technical skills test.

I spent several hours over the past two days or so studying Perl, reviewing its syntax, control structures, using objects, and other stuff. I even learned a few things I didn't know before or had only used without understanding them (references). Now, the only problem is none of this was helpful when I actually got to the test.

Quoth an email:

You have the following language choices to take the test in: Java, C++, C# and Perl.

But, when I got to the test they said: "You can take the test in Java, C++, or C#."

I fumed for a bit, answered 15 Java questions rather poorly since a lot of them had to do with things I didn't know or remember. I think I did okay on the part where they asked a problem solving question about what software and components I would use to develop a web application for a bookstore.

It will be a miracle if I get this job. I hope one of the 10 other test takers knew what they were doing and that they enjoy their summer internship. *sighs*

Pardon my bitterness, I just got back from it.

Make sure you understand references and how to use them to set up complex data structures, including references to functions, named or anonymous. Familiarize yourself with doing OO in Perl - at least how to use objects, if not how to write them yourself. After those lessons, the power of CPAN is at your disposal.

"Web services" is cool as a buzzword and all, but it won't do you any good to know about them if you can't write Perl to begin with. And for someone who can, getting up to speed on the topic is not much more than reading some general docs about it, installing a module (SOAP::Lite f. this ex.) and reading its POD.

Welcome back.

Makeshifts last the longest.

I would suggest buying a camel (Programming Perl) and cramming.

Update: On a second note, I would suggest reading any manpage with a "tut" at the end of its name that you think might be relevant. You can find an online version here.

Everyone else has had great recommendations on what to read. I must recommend that you do.

Pick a little project that you think you can handle in an evening, and spend some time getting those hands dirty. Start with a rough idea written in POD in 5 minutes, code until it's feature-complete, then code-complete, then zero-defect, then document-complete.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

• find out the ten most common file types on your whole computer hard drive
• write your own wc command, complete with character, word and line counts for a given text file
• fetch a web page from a given url and strip out all the font tags

If you're not using a freshly-installed CPAN module, a hash of lists, and more than one regular expression, you may be shortchanging yourself.

--
[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

PERL

It's either Perl or perl, but never PERL. Perl is the language, perl is its implementation (i.e. the interpreter/binary).

A very good free resource for learning Perl is http://learn.perl.org/library/beginning_perl/.

Juerd
- http://juerd.nl/
- spamcollector_perlmonks@juerd.nl (do not use).

I too find it jarring when I see PERL in a sentence. Unfortunately it's just as distracting that every time someone makes the mistake on Perl Monks, someone has to reply with a correction. Perhaps the node preview page could detect the presence of /\bPERL\b/ and warn the poster in huge red letters that they will be flamed if they fail to correct the capitalisation - it might deter one or two :-)

This is a story of a girl
She just wanted to learn some Perl
Asked the monks for some advice
They screamed back at her "No Dice!"
"You typed 'PERL" they whined
Now, no answers shall ye find
[download]

Don't forget to keep us updated on the outcome :)