Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: The Book (was Re: Looking for balanced critique of Perl)
Message-ID: <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 29 Jun 90 06:11:37 GMT
References: <4811@muffin.cme.nist.gov> <103428@convex.convex.com> <1990Jun27.171449.4507@iwarp.intel.com> <355@cmic.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 30

In article <355@cmic.UUCP> garvey@cmic.UUCP (Joe Garvey) writes:
: Not if it isn't well organized and thought out. Despite the terseness
: of the man page (a time honored unix tradition :-)), it does a "complete"
: job, and is well organized. No, there aren't scads of examples. No, it
: doesn't start you off with just enough information to get you started
: if you haven't used perl before... it dives right in. The book should
: be targeted (in my opinion) to help those others who can't get started
: in perl from the man page. I hope one of the objectives of the book is
: to increase the numbers of perl users... to mainstream perl. I hope
: that eventually Sun, HP, SCO, OSF will offer perl as part of their
: standard unix.

That is exactly where the book is targeted.  It starts off with very much
of a hold-your-hand tutorial, giving just what you need to know to
get started, and then has some longer examples of things you might do,
and then has everything else arranged so that you can look things up
as you need them.

Most of the examples will NOT be for system administration, since we
think that most system administrators got to be one because they knew
how to read manual pages already.  Contrariwise, we think the typical
SA will be able to take the general examples and whip up something
of their own.  After all, they'll do that anyway, can't stop 'em...

: Write an important program, give it away. Make money off the book, and
: the movie. :-)

I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes...don't suppose that counts...

Larry