Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-07-31 12:47:20 - Graham Ellis
So you want to learn Perl ... (an excellent programming language for many tasks)
QUESTION: Have you programmed before?
NO:
If you're a newcomer to programming, then you'll need to learn about some of the principles involved, and will want a course which takes a more gentle pace as it goes through those fundamental techniques. See our Learning to Program in Perl course.
YES:
If your previous language was something like Fortran or C, you'll still benefit from the gentle pace at the start, as you'll need to unlearn some of the things that you're very used to ... and that's why our Perl Programming course has shared the same agenda and timing as "Learning to Program in Perl" for a number of years.
However ... times, they are a'changing. These days, many delegates will be attending a Perl Programming course in order to convert across or support existing Perl code with prior experience in a language such as python or PHP. And there's much less of the unlearning to do in this case ... delegates will want a faster starting course, and one that goes a little deeper into some of the more advanced subjects.
We've already provided faster-start Perl courses for single client groups, and as from December 2012, we'll be rebalancing our Perl Programming course ... or pre-requistites for this four day course will read "suitable for delegates with prior programming experience in a modern programming language such as Python, Ruby, Java, C#, Objective C, PHP, Tcl or Lua."
Coming in to the course ... much more coverage of standard modules. More coverage of Object Oriented Perl. New features added after Perl 5.8, now that most users have 5.10 or later, with a preparation for a potential move to Perl 6. Reduced - time spent on features such as lists and hashes, which have close equivalents in all the languages now listed as possible pre-requisites.
We are running a public Perl course - to the new specification - next week (that's from Tuesday 7th to Friday 10th August). It will be a tiny group - just 2 or 3 delegates - and we're only charging the rate for a three day course this one time - that's £850.00 + VAT - even though it's four days long.
I would love to have some old friends back ... please call us (01225 708225) or email (graham@wellho.net) if you're interested.