Ok, so I picked up a old copy of "SAMS Teach yourself Perl in 24 hours". It teaches Perl 5.06. It was $.50 and I figured it was a good deal. Also, I bought "Perl for Dummies," a book I didn't really like. Then just a few moments ago, I happened to find a few free ebooks on learning Perl. Which are pretty good so far.

Anyway, now to the reason of my post. Any tips on learning this programming language? I've never programmed before but all of this reading is really boring. I like to jump right into it and create something. I've done pretty well so far with MushClient using just triggers, aliases and such for bashing. All I did read a few definitions and look over a few examples. I'd really like to jump into something advanced. So, is it possible to learn to program like this?

Also, how much of a language must you know in order to script in MC? I'm actually taking C+ for the next two semesters and then JAVA some time after that. So, I figure if its a lot of background programming knowledge is needed, I might as well get started learning one of those instead of Perl.

Thanks in advance guys!

In my personal opinion, Perl is not a good first language. The syntax can be a bit obtuse.

If you want to learn to script in MUSHclient, I highly recommend you go with Lua. There are free manuals on the web site (lua.org), and a free book published on the site, also. Nick has tons of useful examples on his Lua forum for MUSHclient that can be applied to actual MUD coding.

I agree with this. I've been programming for a few years now, and I still don't like Perl. Lua is one of the easier languages that can be used in MUSHClient, it's a good starter language to pick up. VBScript is also an option, which is more difficult, but is also more likely to be useful in other programming situations since it's much more widely used than Lua.

I would personally learn C++ or Lua from the start. Lua is a great language for mushclient, and will teach you some concepts that might(?) be better learned early.

Perl looks like Snoopy swearing.

It's actually not a bad language for a number of utility tasks; not so great for the web. It's also not the most straightforward to understand. There's actually a contest every year to see who can write the most incomprehensible Perl program that still runs.

For MUSHClient, I second the suggestions you were offered.

However, for -programming- knowledge in general, none of the MUSHClient languages are really that great because they aren't truly object-oriented (unless I missed one), and learning how to do good object-oriented programming is far more important to a career in programming than a particular language.

C++, Java, and C# are good choices for this sort of thing, and you can download many free IDEs for any or all of those. VB.NET is, too, but its syntax is so different from other programming languages that you're probably better off starting with another. If you're wanting something a bit more Perl-like, Ruby and Python are good choices.

Once you get one language down, learning new ones is easy, so don't sweat the decision too much.

It depends on what you're looking for. I think he's looking at the scripting languages specifically, and deciding which would be more useful. For applications, I would definitely look into .NET stuff instead (C#.net and VB.Net are actually pretty similar). For scripting, though, Perl is useful, but ugly. Lua is easier to wrap your mind around in my opinion, but VBScript is more widely used. There are positives and negatives to each.

They both use the same classes from the .NET Framework which gives an impression of similarity, but the actual languages themselves are pretty different, even in some fundamental ways. One language will support something the other does not and vice-versa.

I build applications in both, but if I had to pick one or the other to learn, I'd pick C# just because it's the most similar to other programming languages. VB.NET (and the various flavors of VB before it) is really its own breed.

Diving into the hard stuff might be usefull and even rewarding, but only if you have a solid knowledge of the basics. If you're missing a good knowledge of the basics then you'll end up being able to write a very small range of apps based on patterns that you learnt(every complex application is built from the basic stuff).

As for the language then i agree that perl might not be the best choice, but it really depends on what you're going to do. I see that a lot of people suggest to go for the .net and object oriented stuff or you won't have any hope in the real world of programming, but i do not agree with that. .net is platform dependent same like languages like vb and vbscript so it really depends if you want to make windows as your main development platform or not. On the other hand the good old language of C is available on virtually any platform and is able to do things that none of higher level languages can. C++ is nice and seems to be the choice of many windows developers for building their applications, but I personally dislike it for being bloated and not so efficient as i would like. Java is nice for making web applications and mobile stuff, but it's really slow(while cross platform).

Object oriented stuff can be usefull but is really overrated and in most cases overused and pointless. Saying that you won't be able to do anything in the modern industry without OO is laughable and false. I rarely had to deal with OO in all the jobs that i did, but some employers seems to demand you to do OO code for no apparent reason except that they might think that it's some kind of industrial standard.

Everything i wrote is my opinion and experience and is not brought to offend or start a debate about OOP vs POP.

.NET isn't platform dependent when you use the Mono Project libraries.

Leo laport loves Perl.

How come everytime somebody asks a question on how to do something, bunch ofpeople say "don't bother doing it".... so ANNOYING!


Anyway, the 24 hour book should be good at getting you jumping into the code. The best way to learn programming I have found, is to have a task you want to get done.

So for example, you might want to write a program that arranges your icons in your window into the shape of a picture. Try doing that, or something similarlly silly, and you will learn a lot.

If programming languages were schools of magic, Perl would be necromancy - It's dirty, evil, malignant, and the key to true power. And yes, learning it as a first language gives you a very skewered notion of what programming is, because it does look like line noise. I suggest you start out with Python, which is a very good newbie language while still being very useful in the real world. Or you can try Lisp. If programming languages were drugs, Lisp would be LSD (Perl would be crack.)

Thanks for the input. I decided to put off trying to make a system for myself. I picked and read a general "How to Program" book that teaches independent of any languages. Now that I have the basics, I think I just may dive into C++ and get a head start on the class I'm thinking next semester.

Then, I think I'll try my hand at one of the languages you guys mentioned. Thanks again everyone.

Edited to add: Verithrax, I love your descriptions.

Scripting Languages all have different syntaxes. I guess it depends on what you are doing or what to do.

One great lesson in a scripting language is this really whacked-out teaching guide to Ruby, the language that has the "sexy" factor and drives Ruby on Rails, the "Web 2.0 programing language". Here's how somebody called "Why the Lucky Stiff" teaches you the basic syntax.

http://www.poignantguide.net/ruby/chapter-3.html