=head1 NAME
-perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.32 $, $Date: 1999/10/14 18:46:09 $)
+perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.25 $, $Date: 2003/10/16 04:57:38 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
One simple way to check that things are in the right place is to print out
the hard-coded @INC that perl looks through for libraries:
- % perl -e 'print join("\n",@INC)'
+ % perl -le 'print for @INC'
If this command lists any paths that don't exist on your system, then you
may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create
=head2 What modules and extensions are available for Perl? What is CPAN? What does CPAN/src/... mean?
-CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a ~700mb archive
+CPAN stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a ~1.2Gb archive
replicated on nearly 200 machines all over the world. CPAN contains
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 web site for CPAN is
http://www.cpan.org/ and there is the CPAN Multiplexer at
-http://www.perl.com/CPAN/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you
+http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html which will choose a mirror near you
via DNS. See http://www.perl.com/CPAN (without a slash at the
end) for how this process works. Also, http://mirror.cpan.org/
has a nice interface to the http://www.cpan.org/MIRRORED.BY
See http://www.cpan.org/modules/00modlist.long.html or
http://search.cpan.org/ for a more complete list of modules by category.
+CPAN is not affiliated with O'Reilly and Associates.
=head2 Is there an ISO or ANSI certified version of Perl?
http://perldoc.cpan.org/
http://www.perldoc.com/
- http://reference.perl.com/query.cgi?tutorials
http://bookmarks.cpan.org/search.cgi?cat=Training%2FTutorials
=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on Usenet? Where do I post questions?
-The now defunct comp.lang.perl newsgroup has been superseded by the
-following groups:
+Several groups devoted to the Perl language are on Usenet:
comp.lang.perl.announce Moderated announcement group
- comp.lang.perl.misc Very busy group about Perl in general
- comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
+ comp.lang.perl.misc High traffic general Perl discussion
+ comp.lang.perl.moderated Moderated discussion group
comp.lang.perl.modules Use and development of Perl modules
comp.lang.perl.tk Using Tk (and X) from Perl
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
-There is also Usenet gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
-Perl development team (perl5-porters) at
-news://news.perl.com/perl.porters-gw/ .
+Some years ago, comp.lang.perl was divided into those groups, and
+comp.lang.perl itself officially removed. While that group may still
+be found on some news servers, it is unwise to use it, because
+postings there will not appear on news servers which honour the
+official list of group names. Use comp.lang.perl.misc for topics
+which do not have a more-appropriate specific group.
+
+There is also a Usenet gateway to Perl mailing lists sponsored by
+perl.org at nntp://nntp.perl.org , a web interface to the same lists
+at http://nntp.perl.org/group/ and these lists are also available
+under the C<perl.*> hierarchy at http://groups.google.com . Other
+groups are listed at http://lists.perl.org/ ( also known as
+http://lists.cpan.org/ ).
+
+A nice place to ask questions is the PerlMonks site,
+http://www.perlmonks.org/ , or the Perl Beginners mailing list
+http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=beginners .
+
+Note that none of the above are supposed to write your code for you:
+asking questions about particular problems or general advice is fine,
+but asking someone to write your code for free is not very cool.
=head2 Where should I post source code?
feel free to cross-post to comp.lang.perl.misc. If you want to cross-post
to alt.sources, please make sure it follows their posting standards,
including setting the Followup-To header line to NOT include alt.sources;
-see their FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/) for details.
+see their FAQ ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sources-intro/ ) for details.
If you're just looking for software, first use Google
-(http://www.google.com), Deja (http://www.deja.com), and
-CPAN Search (http://search.cpan.org). This is faster and more
-productive than just posting a request.
+( http://www.google.com ), Google's usenet search interface
+( http://groups.google.com ), and CPAN Search ( http://search.cpan.org ).
+This is faster and more productive than just posting a request.
=head2 Perl Books
by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
with Foreword by Larry Wall
ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st Edition August 1998]
- http://perl.oreilly.com/cookbook/
+ http://perl.oreilly.com/catalog/cookbook/
If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might
suffice for you to learn Perl from. If you're not, check out the
ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
+And for more advanced information on writing larger programs,
+presented in the same style as the Llama book, continue your education
+with the Alpaca book:
+
+ Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules (the "Alpaca Book")
+ by Randal L. Schwartz, with Tom Phoenix (foreword by Damian Conway)
+ ISBN 0-596-00478-8 [1st edition June 2003]
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lrnperlorm/
+
If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and
possibly even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much
hand-holding as we try to provide in the Llama, please check out the
ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
-Addison-Wesley (http://www.awlonline.com/) and Manning
-(http://www.manning.com/) are also publishers of some fine Perl books
+Addison-Wesley ( http://www.awlonline.com/ ) and Manning
+( http://www.manning.com/ ) are also publishers of some fine Perl books
such as I<Object Oriented Programming with Perl> by Damian Conway and
I<Network Programming with Perl> by Lincoln Stein.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
Perl 5 Pocket Reference
- by Johan Vromans
+ by Johan Vromans
ISBN 0-596-00032-4 [3rd edition May 2000]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/
Perl in a Nutshell
- by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
+ by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
ISBN 1-56592-286-7 [1st edition December 1998]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/
Elements of Programming with Perl
by Andrew L. Johnson
- ISBN 1884777805 [1st edition October 1999]
+ ISBN 1-884777-80-5 [1st edition October 1999]
http://www.manning.com/Johnson/
Learning Perl
ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
+ Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules
+ by Randal L. Schwartz, with Tom Phoenix (foreword by Damian Conway)
+ ISBN 0-596-00478-8 [1st edition June 2003]
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lrnperlorm/
+
Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen,
with foreword by Larry Wall
Perl: The Programmer's Companion
by Nigel Chapman
ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
- http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
+ http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
+ http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)
Cross-Platform Perl
by Eric Foster-Johnson
Mastering Regular Expressions
by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
- ISBN 1-56592-257-3 [1st edition January 1997]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/
+ ISBN 0-596-00289-0 [2nd edition July 2002]
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/
Network Programming with Perl
by Lincoln Stein
Object Oriented Perl
Damian Conway
with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
- ISBN 1884777791 [1st edition August 1999]
+ ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
http://www.manning.com/Conway/
Data Munging with Perl
- Dave Cross
- ISBN 1930110006 [1st edition 2001]
- http://www.manning.com/cross
+ Dave Cross
+ ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
+ http://www.manning.com/cross
+
+ Mastering Perl/Tk
+ by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
+ ISBN 1-56592-716-8 [1st edition January 2002]
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mastperltk/
- Learning Perl/Tk
- by Nancy Walsh
- ISBN 1-56592-314-6 [1st edition January 1999]
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperltk/
+ Extending and Embedding Perl
+ by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
+ ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
+ http://www.manning.com/jenness
=back
=head2 Perl in Magazines
-The first and only periodical devoted to All Things Perl,
+The first (and for a long time, only) periodical devoted to All Things Perl,
I<The Perl Journal> contains tutorials, demonstrations, case studies,
announcements, contests, and much more. I<TPJ> has columns on web
development, databases, Win32 Perl, graphical programming, regular
expressions, and networking, and sponsors the Obfuscated Perl Contest
-and the Perl Poetry Contests. As of mid-2001, the dead tree version
-of TPJ will be published as a quarterly supplement of SysAdmin
-magazine ( http://www.sysadmin.com/ ) For more details on TPJ,
-see http://www.tpj.com/
+and the Perl Poetry Contests. Beginning in November 2002, TPJ moved to a
+reader-supported monthly e-zine format in which subscribers can download
+issues as PDF documents. For more details on TPJ, see http://www.tpj.com/
Beyond this, magazines that frequently carry quality articles on
-Perl are I<Web Techniques> ( http://www.webtechniques.com/ ),
+Perl are I<The Perl Review> ( http://www.theperlreview.com ),
I<Unix Review> ( http://www.unixreview.com/ ),
I<Linux Magazine> ( http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ ),
and Usenix's newsletter/magazine to its members, I<login:>
( http://www.usenix.org/ )
-The Perl columns of Randal L. Schwarz are available on the web at
+The Perl columns of Randal L. Schwartz are available on the web at
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/WebTechniques/ ,
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/ , and
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/ .
=head2 Perl on the Net: FTP and WWW Access
-To get the best performance, pick a site from
-the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites
-which is at /CPAN/MIRRORED.BY or at http://mirror.cpan.org/.
-From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
-following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors
-(the complete list contains 165 sites as of January 2001):
-
- http://www.cpan.org/
- http://www.perl.com/CPAN/
- http://download.sourceforge.net/mirrors/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/plan/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.flirble.org/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.uvsq.fr/pub/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/lang/CPAN/
- ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/perl/CPAN/
- ftp://cpan.if.usp.br/pub/mirror/CPAN/
-
-One may also use xx.cpan.org where "xx" is the 2-letter country code
-for your domain; e.g. Australia would use au.cpan.org.
-[Note: This only applies to countries that host at least one mirror.]
+To get the best performance, pick a site from the list at
+http://www.cpan.org/SITES.html . From there you can find the quickest
+site for you.
+
+You may also use xx.cpan.org where "xx" is the 2-letter country code
+for your domain; e.g. Australia would use au.cpan.org. [Note: This
+only applies to countries that host at least one mirror.]
=head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl?
mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
subscription information.
- http://lists.cpan.org/
+A comprehensive list of Perl related mailing lists can be found at:
+
+ http://lists.perl.org/
=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
The Google search engine now carries archived and searchable newsgroup
-content.
+content.
-http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&group=comp.lang.perl.misc
+http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc
If you have a question, you can be sure someone has already asked the
same question at some point on c.l.p.m. It requires some time and patience
user community and an extensive literature. The comp.lang.perl.*
newsgroups and several of the mailing lists provide free answers to your
questions in near real-time. Perl has traditionally been supported by
-Larry, scores of software designers and developers, and myriads of
+Larry, scores of software designers and developers, and myriad
programmers, all working for free to create a useful thing to make life
better for everyone.
Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
-=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org?
+=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org? cpan.org?
The Perl Home Page at http://www.perl.com/ is currently hosted by
The O'Reilly Network, a subsidiary of O'Reilly and Associates.
http://bugs.perl.org/
http://history.perl.org/
http://lists.perl.org/
- http://news.perl.org/
http://use.perl.org/
+http://www.cpan.org/ is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network,
+a replicated worlwide repository of Perl software, see
+the I<What is CPAN?> question earlier in this document.
+
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.