=head1 NAME
-perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.31 $, $Date: 1999/04/14 03:46:19 $)
+perlfaq2 - Obtaining and Learning about Perl ($Revision: 1.32 $, $Date: 1999/10/14 18:46:09 $)
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Perl builds and runs on a bewildering number of platforms. Virtually
all known and current Unix derivatives are supported (Perl's native
-platform), as are proprietary systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows,
+platform), as are other systems like VMS, DOS, OS/2, Windows,
QNX, BeOS, and the Amiga. There are also the beginnings of support
for MPE/iX.
http://www.perl.com/latest/
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/
-Someone looking for a Perl for Win16 might look to LMOLNAR's djgpp
+Someone looking for a Perl for Win16 might look to Laszlo Molnar's djgpp
port in http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/msdos/ , which comes with clear
installation instructions. A simple installation guide for MS-DOS using
-IlyaZ's OS/2 port is available at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perl5dos.html
-and similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~piet/perlwin3.html .
+Ilya Zakharevich's OS/2 port is available at
+http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perl5dos.html
+and similarly for Windows 3.1 at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/%7Epiet/perlwin3.html .
=head2 I don't have a C compiler on my system. How can I compile perl?
If this command lists any paths which don't exist on your system, then you
may need to move the appropriate libraries to these locations, or create
-symlinks, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed as
+symbolic links, aliases, or shortcuts appropriately. @INC is also printed as
part of the output of
% perl -V
Considering that there are hundreds of existing modules in the
archive, one probably exists to do nearly anything you can think of.
-Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include perl core
+Current categories under CPAN/modules/by-category/ include Perl core
modules; development support; operating system interfaces; networking,
devices, and interprocess communication; data type utilities; database
interfaces; user interfaces; interfaces to other languages; filenames,
=head2 Where can I get information on Perl?
-The complete Perl documentation is available with the perl distribution.
-If you have perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
+The complete Perl documentation is available with the Perl distribution.
+If you have Perl installed locally, you probably have the documentation
installed as well: type C<man perl> if you're on a system resembling Unix.
This will lead you to other important man pages, including how to set your
$MANPATH. If you're not on a Unix system, access to the documentation
will be different; for example, it might be only in HTML format. But all
-proper perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
+proper Perl installations have fully-accessible documentation.
You might also try C<perldoc perl> in case your system doesn't
have a proper man command, or it's been misinstalled. If that doesn't
http://language.perl.com/info/documentation.html
http://reference.perl.com/query.cgi?tutorials
-=head2 What are the Perl newsgroups on USENET? Where do I post questions?
+=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:
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
-There is also USENET gateway to the mailing list used by the crack
+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/ .
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.
-If you're just looking for software, first use Alta Vista, Deja News, and
+If you're just looking for software, first use AltaVista
+(http://www.altavista.com), Deja (http://www.deja.com), and
search CPAN. This is faster and more productive than just posting
a request.
=head2 Perl Books
A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of
-these are good, some are ok, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
+these are good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. Tom
Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive
reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html.
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal L. Schwartz
*Perl 5 Desktop Reference
- By Johan Vromans
+ by Johan Vromans
+
+ *Perl in a Nutshell
+ by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
=item Tutorials
How to Set up and Maintain a World Wide Web Site [2nd edition]
by Lincoln Stein
+ *Learning Perl/Tk
+ by Nancy Walsh
+
=back
=head2 Perl in Magazines
To get the best (and possibly cheapest) performance, pick a site from
the list below and use it to grab the complete list of mirror sites.
->From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
+From there you can find the quickest site for you. Remember, the
following list is I<not> the complete list of CPAN mirrors.
http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local
http://www.cs.ruu.nl/pub/PERL/CPAN/
ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
-=head2 What mailing lists are there for perl?
+=head2 What mailing lists are there for Perl?
-Most of the major modules (tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
+Most of the major modules (Tk, CGI, libwww-perl) have their own
mailing lists. Consult the documentation that came with the module for
subscription information. The Perl Institute attempts to maintain a
list of mailing lists at:
=head2 Archives of comp.lang.perl.misc
-Have you tried Deja News or Alta Vista? Those are the
+Have you tried Deja or AltaVista? Those are the
best archives. Just look up "*perl*" as a newsgroup.
- http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&format=terse&showsort=date&maxhits=25&subjects=&groups=*perl*&authors=&fromdate=&todate=
+ http://www.deja.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=&DBS=2&ST=PS&defaultOp=AND&LNG=ALL&format=terse&showsort=date&maxhits=25&subjects=&groups=*perl*&authors=&fromdate=&todate=
You'll probably want to trim that down a bit, though.
However, these answers may not suffice for managers who require a
purchase order from a company whom they can sue should anything go awry.
Or maybe they need very serious hand-holding and contractual obligations.
-Shrink-wrapped CDs with perl on them are available from several sources if
-that will help. For example, many perl books carry a perl distribution
+Shrink-wrapped CDs with Perl on them are available from several sources if
+that will help. For example, many Perl books carry a Perl distribution
on them, as do the O'Reilly Perl Resource Kits (in both the Unix flavor
and in the proprietary Microsoft flavor); the free Unix distributions
also all come with Perl.
=head2 Where do I send bug reports?
If you are reporting a bug in the perl interpreter or the modules
-shipped with perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the perl distribution or
+shipped with Perl, use the I<perlbug> program in the Perl distribution or
mail your report to perlbug@perl.com .
If you are posting a bug with a non-standard port (see the answer to
Read the perlbug(1) man page (perl5.004 or later) for more information.
-=head2 What is perl.com?
+=head2 What is perl.com? Perl Mongers? pm.org? perl.org?
The perl.com domain is owned by Tom Christiansen, who created it as a
public service long before perl.org came about. Despite the name, it's a
pretty non-commercial site meant to be a clearinghouse for information
about all things Perlian, accepting no paid advertisements, bouncy
-happy gifs, or silly java applets on its pages. The Perl Home Page at
+happy GIFs, or silly Java applets on its pages. The Perl Home Page at
http://www.perl.com/ is currently hosted on a T3 line courtesy of Songline
Systems, a software-oriented subsidiary of O'Reilly and Associates.
Other starting points include
http://conference.perl.com/
http://reference.perl.com/
+Perl Mongers is an advocacy organization for the Perl language. For
+details, see the Perl Mongers web site at http://www.perlmongers.org/.
+
+Perl Mongers uses the pm.org domain for services related to Perl user
+groups. See the Perl user group web site at http://www.pm.org/ for more
+information about joining, starting, or requesting services for a Perl
+user group.
+
+Perl Mongers also maintains the perl.org domain to provide general
+support services to the Perl community, including the hosting of mailing
+lists, web sites, and other services. The web site
+http://www.perl.org/ is a general advocacy site for the Perl language,
+and there are many other sub-domains for special topics, such as
+
+ http://history.perl.org/
+ http://bugs.perl.org/
+ http://www.news.perl.org/
+
=head1 AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.
covered under Perl's Artistic License. For separate distributions of
all or part of this FAQ outside of that, see L<perlfaq>.
-Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are public
+Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples here are in the public
domain. You are permitted and encouraged to use this code and any
derivatives thereof in your own programs for fun or for profit as you
see fit. A simple comment in the code giving credit to the FAQ would
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff