Cheers everyone! Especially for those articles, I'll have a good read later.
I downloaded the binary distribution, but now I'm stuck. I don't know what to open. I keep on thinking there should be a nice easy interface like BlueJ, so that I can edit and compile to my hearts delight, however I'm begining to get the feeling that it's not that simple.
I shall carry on having a bash at it anyway. I'll keep y'all posted.
Vickie | [reply] |
Having gone through similar steps in not-so-distant past, I would advise a few things:
1. Get a book on Perl. I have one from Sybase, but believe that O'Reily has the best one... And it is much easier to absorb information while reading it from the book comparing to computer screen (at least, that's how it is for me and quite a few people I know)
2. I believe you already installed ActivePerl on your XP box... Get a nice editor, preferably free, with syntax coloring etc... whatever you will be comfortable working with. Try a few at first, then choose... For example, I liked PSPad
3. Try scripting, but choose good purposes for them. I mean, work on something that's at least somewhat important for you so that a working script will boost your self-confidence and make you feel you've accomplished something.
4. As you progress on the Perl path, try to make your code {smaller|more readable|obfuscated} in several different ways - it's a great learning way and fun too...
5. Keep visiting here as often as you can - that's the place for the most of good advices and information!
Good luck!
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An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it...
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I recommend the editor gvim - it's free and has very good context-highlighting for perl (and just about everything else).
Create a text file called something.pl, and put your code in it. If you edit in one window and run with a command line 'perl something.pl' in another window, it should be fine. There's no compilation step with perl, so you don't have to worry about that one.
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ActiveState also do a rather nice IDE, but its fairly expensive and needs a reasonably chunky computer.
If I found myself having to write Perl on a Windows system I would probably set course for Cygwin to get myself a decent shell (bash), although it is possible to get the job done with cmd (the shell that comes with Windows XP). Then I'd get myself a decent text editor. I'm pretty sure that Emacs is available through Cygwin, but Emacs is quite scary for a newbie. JEdit might be a good choice, it has many of the benefits of Emacs, but without the need to know weird key combinations.
Oh, and ActiveState have some documentation for getting started with Perl on Windows.
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There are a few Perl IDE's around - eh voila
I used Perl Scripting Tool when I was first learning, but that appears to be dead. Perl Builder looks quite interesting...
time was, I could move my arms like a bird and...
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