Raising Your Level of Perl Mastery

Nathan Torkington

A Perl Novice...

• Thinks CGI and Perl are interchangeable terms.
• Still thinks Perl looks like bad C code viewed over a noisy modem.
• Is insecure about the concept of dollar signs and at signs.
• Thinks Perl should be more like sh or tcl.
• Has heard of the ``Unix mindset'', but hopes it's a treatable condition.
• Can't figure out how to read input from the keyboard.
• Thinks regular expressions are somebody cursing.
• Wonders why no one can give him a straight answer about whether Perl is compiled or interpreted.

A Perl Initiate...

• Has begun to learn about $_ -- and doesn't like it one bit.
• Thinks the -w flag is a waste of time.
• Thinks Perl should be more like C++ or Java.
• Is still trying to figure why Perl has two different kinds of arrays.
• Knows how to use perlbug, but sends in bogus bug reports.
• Has been bitten by implicit context conversions, but hasn't caught on yet to how triggered it.
• Can't keep == separate from eq, and still thinks that + should  concatenate strings.

A Perl User...

• Thinks Perl is just for text processing.
• Uses the Perl debugger.
• Has used other people's modules.
• Wonders what an object is.
• Knows their way around CPAN.
• Knows the difference between local and my.
• Uses <DATA>.
• Is still trying to figure what references are for.
• Thinks Perl should be more like scheme or eiffel.
• Submits real bug reports with perlbug.

A Perl Adept...

• Write JAPHs to impress their friends and annoy their coworkers.
• Begins all programs with use strict.
• Thinks Perl should just be Perl.
• Has taken enough advantage of cryptocontext to annoy others.
• Knows how to create records and objects with hash refs.
• Uses syscall to get at undocumented operating system calls.
• Curses the flexibility of the Perl object system.
• Uses /e in substitutes.
• Has begun to wonder what typeglobs are for.
• Has written their own modules in Perl.
• Begins to look at all data in terms of regular expressions.
• Understands why regexes can't match nested data.
• Rewrites minor utilities in Perl.

A Perl Hacker...

• Writes games in Perl.
• Has written extension modules in C.
• Uses AUTOLOAD and closures in curious ways.
• Appreciates the aethetics of the Schwartzian Transform.
• Delights in the flexibility of the Perl object system.
• Has written their own pod2XXX translator.
• Understands the output from Perl -Dflags.
• Accesses the Perl symbol table directly.
• Submits bug reports with working patches.
• Edits files using a special Perl-embedded version of vi or emacs.
• Has contributed modules, manpages, and tools to the standard Perl distribution.

A Perl Guru...

• Can answer any Perl question instantly.
• Can write anything in Perl -- and does.
• Takes advantage of undocumented language features.
• Writes code that gives even Larry pause.
• Implements opaque objects and compiled regexes using closures.
• Can read and understand the output of the perl-to-C compiler.
• Embeds Perl interpreters in larger applications.
• Has written their own -d:debugger module.
• Used object-oriented programming before it existed.
• Is debating taking their turn with the patch pumpkin.

A Perl Wizard...

• Is on a first-name basis with Larry's wife.
• Has written or rewritten major subsystems of the Perl compiler or interpreter.
• Is thinking about rewriting the regex engine, the memory allocator, or the garbage collector.
• Doesn't write games in Perl because they realize that Perl *is* the game.

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