=head1 NAME
-perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.15 $, $Date: 1997/03/25 18:15:48 $)
+perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.16 $, $Date: 1997/04/23 18:04:09 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
find this at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz, which is a
gzipped archive in POSIX tar format. This source builds with no
porting whatsoever on most Unix systems (Perl's native environment),
-as well as Plan 9, VMS, QNX, OS/2, and the Amiga.
-
-Although it's rumored that the (imminent) 5.004 release may build
-on Windows NT, this is yet to be proven. Binary distributions
-for 32-bit Microsoft systems and for Apple systems can be found
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/ directory. Because these are not part of
-the standard distribution, they may and in fact do differ from the base
-Perl port in a variety of ways. You'll have to check their respective
-release notes to see just what the differences are. These differences
-can be either positive (e.g. extensions for the features of the particular
-platform that are not supported in the source release of perl) or negative
-(e.g. might be based upon a less current source release of perl).
-
-A useful FAQ for Win32 Perl users is
+as well as Windows NT, Plan 9, VMS, QNX, OS/2, and the Amiga.
+
+Binary distributions for various platforms can be found
+http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/ directory. Some of these ports (especially
+the ones that are not part of the standard sources) may behave differently
+than what is documented in the standard source documentation. These
+differences can be either positive (e.g. extensions for the features of the
+particular platform that are not supported in the source release of perl)
+or negative (e.g. might be based upon a less current source release of perl).
+
+A useful FAQ for Win32 Perl users is:
http://www.endcontsw.com/people/evangelo/Perl_for_Win32_FAQ.html
+[This FAQ is seriously outdated as of Jan 1998--it is only relevant to
+the perl that ActiveState distributes, especially where it describes
+various inadequacies and differences with the standard perl extension
+build support.]
=head2 How can I get a binary version of Perl?
approaches are doomed to failure.
One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out
-the hardcoded @INC which perl is looking for.
+the hard-coded @INC which perl is looking for.
perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
=head2 I grabbed the sources and tried to compile but gdbm/dynamic loading/malloc/linking/... failed. How do I make it work?
Read the F<INSTALL> file, which is part of the source distribution.
-It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncrasies that the
+It describes in detail how to cope with most idiosyncracies that the
Configure script can't work around for any given system or
architecture.
CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a huge archive
replicated on dozens of machines all over the world. CPAN contains
-source code, nonnative ports, documentation, scripts, and many
+source code, non-native ports, documentation, scripts, and many
third-party modules and extensions, designed for everything from
commercial database interfaces to keyboard/screen control to web
walking and CGI scripts. The master machine for CPAN is
=head2 Perl Books
-A number books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
+A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
these are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive
reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html.
What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally
useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
-If you're already a hardcore systems programmer, then the Camel Book
+If you're already a hard-core systems programmer, then the Camel Book
just might suffice for you to learn Perl from. But if you're not,
check out the "Llama Book". It currently doesn't cover perl5, but the
2nd edition is nearly done and should be out by summer 97:
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
+http:/www.oasis.leo.org/perl/ has, amongst other things, source to
+versions 1 through 5 of Perl.
+
=head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
"mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch".
Also see Matthias Neeracher's (the creator and maintainer of MacPerl)
-web page at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for
+webpage at http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri/macintosh/perl.html for
many links to interesting MacPerl sites, and the applications/MPW
tools, precompiled.
=item Perl-Packrats
Discussion related to archiving of perl materials, particularly the
-Comprehensive PerlArchive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
+Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Subscribe by emailing
majordomo@cis.ufl.edu:
subscribe perl-packrats
shipped with perl, use the perlbug program in the perl distribution or
email your report to perlbug@perl.com.
-If you are posting a bug with a nonstandard port (see the answer to
+If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to
"What platforms is Perl available for?"), a binary distribution, or a
-nonstandard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
+non-standard module (such as Tk, CGI, etc), then please see the
documentation that came with it to determine the correct place to post
bugs.
-Read the perlbug manpage (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
+Read the perlbug man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
=head2 What is perl.com? perl.org? The Perl Institute?
perl.org is the official vehicle for The Perl Institute. The motto of
TPI is "helping people help Perl help people" (or something like
-that). It's a nonprofit organization supporting development,
+that). It's a non-profit organization supporting development,
documentation, and dissemination of perl. Current directors of TPI
include Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal Schwartz, whom you
may have heard of somewhere else around here.
The perl.com domain is Tom Christiansen's domain. He created it as a
public service long before perl.org came about. It's the original PBS
of the Perl world, a clearinghouse for information about all things
-Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy GIFs, or (gasp!)
-Java applets on its pages.
+Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, glossy gifs, or (gasp!)
+java applets on its pages.
=head2 How do I learn about object-oriented Perl programming?
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff