Jonathan's Corner
(Search & Sitemap)
> Writing >
Miscellaneous Nonfiction >
Tinkering with Perl
Skip Back
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
Skip Forward
Printer-Friendly Version
Most books you will find on Perl or any other programming language, are books intended to be a one-size-fits-all -- or, at least, that's how they're advertised. This book does not attempt or pretend to be appropriate to most users; instead, I am trying to do one thing well.
Well, what am I trying to do? Let me first tell what I am not trying to do:
Well, if I am not trying to do all of that, then what am I trying to do?
I am trying to do this: create a book that will help my twelve year old twin brothers learn to tinker.
I first tried to start my little brothers straight off with Java. And Java is a good language -- it will probably be better for them to know than Perl, and I think it would be a good second language to teach, when they are ready to mature, so that they can produce high quality software. But to learn all of those principles all at once is a heavy load, and one which can be confusing. I was telling them very good things, but I was boring them.
Then I began to think about how I first began to program. I first began to tinker in middle school with BASIC, on Apple ][ series computers. I wrote spaghetti code laced with gotos and all sorts of other things I would shudder to do now. I did not then learn to be a good programmer -- at all. But I did learn to be a tinkerer, to play around and explore and put things together. It has been said that education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. That experience lit my fire; it started the curiosity and enjoyment that later caused me to become a real programmer.
This book is not an attempt to immediately achieve the end result of a good programmer in all regards. It has a goal which might be called more modest, but which I believe is ultimately more important: that of lighting the child's fire. Once the fire is lit, it can be tended and carefully pruned; there will be plenty of time for the channeling and discipline necessary to let the fire achieve truly great things. I am not trying to do everything; I am trying, for now, to do one thing well.
Jonathan Hayward, 7-16-98
P.S. There are some intentional inaccuracies. This is because a fully technical treatment of the issues involved would, I believe, needlessly confuse children. Some parts are oversimplified; I intend them to be overridden by more nuanced treatments when an appropriate level of intellectual maturity is reached.
Tinkering with Perl is a free book that provides an introduction to programming in Perl, as well as a basic reference for things like foreach in Perl, if-then, and if-then-else, in addition to providing a glossary where you can find definitions for concatenate and other terms.
Tinkering with Perl may be one of the most popular offerings on this site, but it's not the only attraction. You can read a tongue-in-cheek Game Review: Meatspace, read an even more offbeat customer service survey (whether or not you actually fill it out), and spend a few minutes wishing your boss would read, The Administrator Who Cried, "Important!" (Not to mention that there are other things you can read here besides tech stuff, from Janra Ball: The Headache to The Spectacles.)
Jonathan's Corner
(Search & Sitemap)
> Writing >
Miscellaneous Nonfiction >
Tinkering with Perl
Skip Back
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
Skip Forward
Printer-Friendly Version