Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!fluke!inc From: inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl Subject: Novice Questions Message-ID: <14678@fluke.COM> Date: 6 Feb 90 15:31:23 GMT References: <1004@frankland-river.aaii.oz.au> Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA Lines: 29 Last week I posted a request for the answers to a number of novice questions, and asked that people reply by email rather than posting, as the level of my questions was probably too low to be of general interest. Well, I have been getting mail! Someone once said that the good thing about unix is that you can ask 10,000 people the same question; and the bad thing is that you then get 10,000 answers! THANKS to everyone who has responded to my posting. One person recommended that I synopsize/edit the responses and post that for the benefit of other novices. This seemed like a good idea, so I will work on that and post it in the next day or so. Again, I appreciate the many detailed and clear answers I recieved, and it even helped to be told "I don't understand this question", because it showed me the many ways it is possible to be imprecise when speaking of things as complex as PERL. One person wrote that PERL was "created by Super Macho Hackers to keep their Maniac Power Urges under control". I don't know about that, but I am certain that this person's next statement is right on the mark: PERL is *not* a trivial language. -- Gary Benson -=[S M I L E R]=- inc@fluke.tc.com