How complex is Perl? Is it easy to learn?

Question

1. At first, I was doing C (2 years).
2. Now, I am doing PHP (1.5 years).
3. My boss wants me to learn Perl now. He says the company is going to have many Perl projects now and he need me to do it.

How complex is Perl to learn in my case? Should I clearly say no to him OR should I give it a try.

Edit: You all asked why I would say no to a learning opportunity. Because whenever I switch to a new language, many months are lost in learning it to a standard where I can say, "yes I know this language".

And as brian d foy said:

You might learn the syntax quickly, but that's just the very basics. Learning a language is a lot more than learning syntax, and learning a dynamic language makes that even more so. You can program in Perl as you do in C, but that's ignoring most of Perl's power.

Answer 1

Perl is similar to PHP, so I think you will not have much trouble learning the basics.

Answer 2

It's not bad until you have to support somebody else's legacy Perl code :)

Honestly though, it's kind of a fun language to master. Years ago I considered myself something of a Perl ninja, but it's been so long that I've fallen out of practice. Start with the llama book and go from there. There's a lot you can do with Perl, and a hundred different ways to do it. (That's part of where supporting somebody else's code becomes a hassle... they do things differently than you would.)

Answer 3

Even as a beginner you will quite easily get into Perl. It is very very flexible and allows multiple approaches to a problem.

One drawback is that because of its unbelievable flexibility you can have very hard times maintaining the code someone else has written. It is because Perl kinda allows you to approach a problem your personal way just the way you think rather than dictating a way to solve it.

Perl is extremely powerful if used correctly. It's spectrum is very broad.

You can take a look at the already written and freely available modules which you can simply incorporate into your project. Most of the time you can solve more than half maybe the complete project just by using what the CPAN provides you. Here is a link to the CPAN search.

Go for it. You won't regret.

EDIT: One more thing you should know about Perl. You can run Perl scripts on Windows too. ActiveStates ActivePerl is a good tools for that and it's PDK (Perl Developer Kit) allows you to create executables packed with all necessary libraries in it. This is sometimes is quite handy.

Answer 4

Perl is easy to learn. There are lots of online resources as well. Your background in C and PHP will be of help to you while learning Perl. Some resources to learn Perl:

• Learn Perl
• Perl Beginners' Site

Apart from online resources, there are many books which will help you learn Perl. For example: Learning Perl.

If you would like editors, checkout Padre or Kephra.

Try to get a copy of Perl Best Practices, which will help you develop good coding style.

Enjoy Perl! :-)

Answer 5

It's quite a bit easier to write good code in Perl than PHP, IMO.

There aren't a lot of current tutorial resources on the 5.8+ release series. Most target early Perl 5 (e.g., 5.0001), which is considerably cruftier than, say, Perl 5.12.

Perl is very good for working up code quickly and straightforwardly. I find the semantics usually intuitive. Typically I find that Perl doesn't scale well for me after several thousand lines. But, most Perl I write is shorter than that so it's not an issue. =)

You can also think of Perl as PHP + C and you won't be too far off.

Answer 6

1. Learn Perl.
2. Make your boss happy.
3. ????
4. Profit.

Answer 7

Perl's killer rep stems largely from:

1. It gives you a large number of options for doing stuff. You'll see things that would be elemental components of syntax in other languages that are optional in Perl.
2. Perl loves side effects -- special magic variables that get set by a given operation, or that serve as a default parameter for a given operation, that you'll never know exist unless you have the documentation in front of you.
3. Perl has a nasty habit of encouraging golfing, of attempting to accomplish your task in the fewest keystrokes possible.

Add it all up, and you have a language that is indeed difficult to maintain; you'll learn to hate other peoples' code. Just as they will hate yours, unless you're meticulous about maintaining readability. (Which is actually a very good idea.)

But learning it? Especially with PHP in your bag of tricks? Unlikely to be a problem. It's a very usable language.

Answer 8

Here's my completely subjective answer:

1. It's always a good thing to learn a new programming language. If your employer pays you to learn a new language, you should do that. This comment is completely independent of whether it's Perl or Prolog or Haskell or whatever.

2. Perl is just another imperative scripting language with a cryptic sigils, $ or % or @. It won't take you much time to learn it if you already know C and PHP.

3. Perl has a big community, so there are excellent online/offline resources to learn new tricks.

So, why don't you just jump in and give it a try?

Answer 9

Learning Perl is usually as hard as you make it. Some people can't get over the fact that it's a different language so they try to do things like they would in a different language.

Your ease of learning will also depend on how you decide to learn it. There are a lot of bad tutorials and books out there that guess at some things in Perl. There are really only a handful of concepts that you need to know, but if you don't pick those up you're going to have a lot of pain. Most tutorial writers seem not to know those concepts. Of course, I recommend my book Learning Perl, if not live Perl training from an expert whom you can ask questions and get some guidance. It's very important to not be lead astray from the start. With a good foundation, you can branch out on your own.

A lot of people think learning a language means learning the syntax, but that's just kindergarten. You really need to learn the libraries and tools of a language ecosystem. Perl is mostly popular because of everything it has despite its syntax, including a very dedicated community. You aren't going to learn that stuff from books (although I try to impart some of that in Mastering Perl and Effective Perl Programming). That's mostly a matter of experience.

If you're doing PHP, I might infer that you are doing web stuff. In that case, check out Catalyst. It might not be the Perl web framework you end up using, but it's a good place to start if you don't have an existing preference. Get the Apress book, not any other one.

However, it's probably pretty dumb for a company to take a bunch of people who don't know Perl yet and make them into a Perl shop quickly. I've worked for a few companies that would lie and cheat to get business then scramble to develop the skills they needed to do the project. That's a pretty dumb way to run a business because almost no one likes working in that environment.

You really need someone who's familiar with the landscape to really use Perl (or any language) effectively. You might be able to find a Perl mongers group near you where you can find some experienced people. Find some Perl friends and get to some Perl events if you can.

Perl is a great language to know, but if your boss is expecting a proficient Perl team pumping out solid code in a month by starting from scratch, he's probably moonlighting as one of the characters of FantasyLand.

Answer 10

You may find this comparison chart helpful on the Hyperpolyglot - Programming Language Reference Sheets website (and fortunately PHP & Perl are in the first two columns).

Also you may find this question on SO helpful: What are good books for learning Perl? and perhaps this SO answer

/I3az/

Answer 11

I also hesitated in learning Perl. My reason was the proliferation of sigils ($, @, % etc). Having learned that there is a context for using each (e.g, using the scalar $ to access an element in an array (@)) did not help either.

However, using things like the PLEAC, as well as the O'Reilly nutshell book helped me.

I also rely heavily on Perl::Critic, to know that I'm going down the 'best practices' road.

Answer 12

Since you already know how to program, and you just need to learn Perl, I recommend skimming the Modern Perl Book which provides a good overview of how modern Perl programmers code and the concepts they need to know rather than just focusing on syntax so you can get an idea for yourself about what you're going to want to cover. It's currently in final draft form, and can be read online http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2010/06/modern-perl-the-book-the-draft.html