Re: [MacPerl] beginner perl questions pls

[Patrick Beart <patrick@WebArchitecture.com>]

On 11/10/98, Jay Bedsole took the time to write:
>Vicki writes:
>
>> Once again, I desparately wish for this to be a list where
>> _MacPerl users_ can ask questions that might, just might, be
>> considered _Perl_ questions.
>
>and
>
>> Why should we throw our new friends, other Macophiles just like
>> us, to the wolves of comp.lang.perl.misc just because their
>> question isn't stretched to make it Mac OS specific?
>

	This is only the 4th post that I've read, after subscribing to the
list, yesterday. However, even though I'm an ignorant fool - with respect
to PERL in general, and MacPERL, in particular - I'd like to chime in:

	I bought the "Camel" book about a year ago. I made it all the way
to about page 100 before realizing that I didn't have UNIX access and
wasn't going to understand what Randall was trying to teach/say.
	About a month ago, I bought "PERL for Dummies". I like the Dummies
format, in that I'm a very visual thinker and their "USA Today" style of
short sections, cartoons, and notes helps me "get it". Once again, however,
I still came away without a real understanding of what was going on.
	Last week, I bought "MacPERL power and ease" - Vicki's book. Thus
far, I've made it to page 67 and think that I have a chance of
understanding PERL this time. I bought the book primarily because I
couldn't figure out how to "call" the MacPERL intrepreter from within my
local drive. In UNIX the scripts are preceeded by the "/usr/bin/perl" path.
Nowhere in the MacPERL application, docs, or various archives could I find
the complimentary path for Macs, when trying to create or run a script
locally. To me, that (and some further explanation of PERL) was worth the
$40!

	My main reason for wanting to learn PERL is for Web/CGI purposes.
I've been creating commercial Web sites for just over 4 years. I've worked
with a programmer (18 years experience, works mostly in "C") and paid him
several thousands of dollars over the last 2 years to create even the
simpliest (as well as fairly complex) programs and scripts. I know enough
to tell him what features that I want, but that's it.

	If this list is geared towards MacPERL as a Mac "product" and/or
for MacPERL as a means of manipulating Mac behaviour, please tell me now
and I will unsubscribe. These are not my needs, ultimately.
	I was the one that posted about getting a "Premature end of script
headers" error in the freeware PERL script that I'm trying to run for the
client page. I posted the question AFTER doing searches in CPAN and the
list archives, with no results.
	I respect Vicki's time and efforts towards the book and this list.
However, I need to be able to ask questions about PERL, in general - and
not about MacPERL, specifically.



Patrick Beart

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