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Re: Cases for teaching Perl

by Abigail-II (Bishop)
on Jan 29, 2004 at 13:24 UTC ( [id://324925]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Cases for teaching Perl

there is any problem that the average Windows-Office user faces every day and gets tired of that can light people up and be a reason to start studying Perl and programming in general?
I find this question similar to is there any problem that the average commuter faces every day and gets tired of that can light people up and be a reason to start studying Ford engines and car mechanics in general?

My answer to the latter question is "probably not".

Abigail

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Cases for teaching Perl
by l3nz (Friar) on Jan 29, 2004 at 13:33 UTC
    It's a pity, because if you are on a Unix box you're probably a little more computer-savy and your environment is much more programmer or power user friendly (a good part of what you do on a Unix box is text file editing ad manipulation, so Perl is at home in this environment).

    On the other side, it would be quite a crash start to start the average Windows user with Win32::OLE, however invaluable this proves when you've learnt your basics.

    Maybe something that's file-oriented, like building an HTML catalog of all or some files or images on your hard disk, could be something easier....

    Thanks anyway

Re: Re: Cases for teaching Perl
by Anonymous Monk on Jan 29, 2004 at 18:17 UTC

    Exactly. The OP needs to take a look at basic economics, if there was a problem that required the average Windows-Office user to learn to program, someone would sell a program to handle that problem.

Re: Re: Cases for teaching Perl
by Falkkin (Chaplain) on Jan 29, 2004 at 20:48 UTC
    I find it more similar to is there any problem that the average commuter faces everyday and gets tired of that can light people up and be a reason to start studying how to change their tires/fluids/brake lights and car maintenance in general?

    There's a great amount of utility that can be gained from learning just a small amount of programming, especially shell programming or "scripting languages" like Perl. Sure, it might take a few hours to learn the basics of a simple language, but the amount of time it can save you on automating many tasks will more than pay off in the long run.

    Now, there are people who will say "huh, my car is oozing mutant goo again, better take it in to the shop so they can add some new goo for me" and there are people who who will say "ok, I've wasted enough time/money having these yahoos fix up my car, time to see if I can find out any info on what this goo is and replace it myself". People in the first category are probably a hopeless case, but people in the second category may just need a little prod to set them on the path toward Perl-Fu Enlightenment.

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