Grenades, chainsaws, tarpits, and newbies

By brian d foy
Date: Tuesday, 4 August 2009 11:40
Duration: 40 minutes
Target audience: Beginning Perl
Language:
Tags: beginner dangerous

You might think twice about giving a kid a chainsaw and pointing him at a forest, but not too many people think about giving a beginner a copy of Learning Perl and pointing her at a keyboard. Left alone, both situations can get very ugly really fast. With a little bit of guidance on how to use Perl, newbies don't have to hurt themselves.

This isn't another Perl Best Practices talk or a bunch of Perl syntax; a first week Perl user isn't that far along yet. This is how to think about Perl, or any programming language, even before you get started.

Attended by: