The problem with being self-taught is that you tend to have gaps in your knowledge. You just never happend to read a specific feature of whatever you're learning, even though those that went through a course on it learned it on the first day.

I usually accept this fact by ignoring it. Even if you have specific gaps, what you do know tends to be more in-depth than the people who took a course on it.

I first encoutered Perl about five years ago on a book titled "Teach Yourself CGI Programming with Perl in 21 Days", which is an excelent book if you aspire to be Matt Write (of course, I didn't know that at the time--the author of the book holds Write's scripts in high regard). I put Perl aside for some years, but picked up the Blue Camel about a year and half ago and retaught myself. Then I came across Perl Monks and learned more in six months than I had in the previous four and half years.

Because I needed the credit for my major, I am taking a course in Perl at a local college (two-year associates degree program). I usually end up having a week-long project done during class the day it's assigned. My last project came back with a note from the teacher saying "as usual, I learned something from your project".

In other words, being self-taught put me above and beyond what is being taught in a course. Granted, this is a basic Perl course (it doesn't even teach Perl OO), but when you end up teaching your teacher, it's clear that your self-taught-ness is not a hiderance. Admittedly, I did learn a few things in the class that I simply hadn't come across before, but it's rare.

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I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

++hardburn

The problem with being self-taught is that you tend to have gaps in your knowledge.

Perfect example of this: I learned programming totally ass-backward. I started with HTML, arguably some of the highest-level programming-like stuff (markup ne programming). Then I got into Javascript, then VRML, eventually PHP, then I started doing Perl. The school I was going to taught me Java and *ugh* VB.

Thing is, I never learned the basics, C and C++. Most of the Java books I've seen have a lot of "This is done the same way as in C++" or "The only difference between this and the C++ version is..." or whatever. And every CS major I know started with C/C++ (or at the very least, got it early in their schooling). So lately I've been teaching myself that, hence the ass-backwardness.

Also, the same school I mentioned before had a section on Perl. I wound up teaching my prof a lot there: I'd print out a couple of pages of code for him, he'd rub his forehead and say, "Okay, I'm going to read this over the weekend and get back to you on Monday." It was a great exercise in commenting and documenting my code, just to reduce the severity of the headaches I gave him :o)

On a side note, I heard that ever since I introduced that teacher to use English; he's been using it to teach beginners.

LAI

__END__

There is also the fact that some people learn better on their own than in a lecture environment. So really, you have asked a loaded question. It all depends. An instructor will most likely give you a nice structured lesson, whereas teaching yourself could be all over the place. But there are also books that give you structured lessons.

An instructor gives you the chance to ask questions, but then, so does perlmonks :)

Really, in the end, it's all in how you learn, and what instructor you get, I think. And any advantage or disadvantage is up to the person. Of course, if you don't find places like perlmonks or newsgroups to ask questions, then there is the real benefit of an instructor: Experience.

Update Ok... one thing that can be a bonus other then the instructor's experience is enthusiasm. Go to a class of Damian Conway's some time, or just a talk. If you find an instructor who knows what they are talking about and presents it with enthusiam, that can catch you up and carry you along. It is much harder to pull that out of a book or off the internet. Of course, teachers that can inspire are a rare find, but worth every penny.

                - Ant
                - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)

Another thing to note are the resources you have on hand as well.

My least favorite classes in college were the classes that were taught by someone very good in their field, but lousy at teaching. Or worse yet, that scenerio and then also having that person's book on the subject as your textbook. They would then teach the textbook in class - and if you had any questions, you couldn't then refer to the textbook as an alternative reference and hope that the idea is explained there in a different way that you might understand better than the idea you had in class.

Some of the best classes I had were classes using a great textbook and a teacher that had a great understanding of the concepts and would teach it how he envisioned it - but differently than the way the textbook explained it.
That way if you didn't get what happened in class, you had a different resource to reach to - instead of having duplicate resources - neither of which you understand.

so just like you said, it really depends what resources you have on hand - if they aren't very good - then you are much better off teaching yourself.

I've also found that once you have a pretty firm grasp on programming in general, then the less teaching you need and the more just a reference book will work. Not always the case - but frequently the case.

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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.

Agh! Yes, teachers with a textbook they wrote. Which means if you don't understand the teacher, the book isn't going to help either. Not to mention it just reduces the number of knowledgeable views being presented.

                - Ant
                - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)

What are the difference between instructor lead training and the way I learn perl and continue learning more.

Learning perl is easy. Learning how to program (basically how to think like a computer -- i'm quoting somebody here) is a different ballgame.

MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo! I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests. ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

For myself, one benefit of instructor led training is that it gets me going in some direction and gives me a goal. I learn best when I am doing something. If I don't have a task or goal in mind then I find it more difficult to actually sit down and work on coding. Lately, I have quite a few interesting problems to solve with Perl, so I'm teaching myself new stuff every day and I don't find an instructor to be necessary.

You mention that you've had a programming language course. I have taken some college courses in Program Design and Logic, and other CIS related stuff. These have proven invaluable as an aid to understand Perl programming specifically.

And the number one reason for an instructor led course (YMMV)--you get a transcript or a certificate, or some other hard-copy bit of documentation to wave at your employer and prove you are "qualified"(at least enough to appease HR).

Very often universities find it difficult to attract good Java/C++ teachers in classes. If it is difficult with C++/Java people, it might be even more difficult with Perl people. Here's a comment on both teachers and students of a course at my university:

Teachers. We have a course on Perl at our Informatics faculty. The course mentor is a mature professor from Formal Systems. However, the teacher assigned is a PhD student - he amazingly contributes to many open source things. If not him, we'd have no Perl course.

Students. Of the ~15 students that follow this course each year ~3 really understand what's going on there. And usually they end up really involved in the course. Others follow the course just for passing. As of me, I think it was an excellent course taught by an excellent guy.

In addition to what suaveant said and AssFace wrote...

Learning is fast, efficient, and enjoyable if the course is being taught by an instructor who can and who knows the material. Otheriwise, instructor-lead learning is utter waste of resourses, and leads to dissapointment and "buyer's remorse". Remorse... more so when one is taking a course, by choice, in one's own time, and pulling out of the course does not get you any amount of refund.

Rant follows...

Background: i have been programming in procedural languages more than 3-4 years; self taught Perl, Rexx, bourne shell, JavaScript, etc. Though i already have some Java books, haven't used until i took the course. I am currently on a lazy horizon expanding mission.

I took courses two -- introductory and advanced, intermediate really -- in C++ (Hagerstown Community College, Hagerstown, MD) and one in Java (Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, WV). Along w/ the textbook for C++, i also bought other good C++ books; similarly for Java. Instructor for C++ course was great (see above) and text book good enough. The course being taught what was given in the course blurb.

In total contrast, Java textbook -- Java Software Solutions, 3d ed. -- was geared toward first time programmers in any language (Core Java, 2d ed., is much better in comparison). The handouts had unsused imported classes, unused variables, and plain grammatical mistakes including incomplete sentences. The handouts were too long for rest of the class to be able to both type it and comprehend just what they were writing. The result was slow progress like molasses in winter.

Mind you, this course was supposed to be an advanced course in languge concepts; it turned in to a introductory programming course. After all that, i still hold hope somebody would be able to share some non-trivial Java knowledge and enlightenment someday.