What is the best way to learn about perl and useing it for free over the internet?

Perl's a powerful and versatile programming language, but a lousy first language for beginners.

If you just want the result - a web site with scripts - then you should team up with an experienced programmer.

If you want to learn how to code for fun, php would be a good place to start.

I like the analogy of learning to fly an airplane. Yes, you could get books from the library and "practice" at home with flight simulator. If you went to a flight school or joined the Air Force, you'd learn faster. But if you want to get across country today, you're better off to buy a ticket from someone whose pilots already know what they're doing.

Regards,
Allen

I'll put my $.02 in here and agree with previous poster that you should not start with PERL. Start with PHP.

Agreed - PERL is a bad choice for a first language, and one that is becoming less common every day. It still has it's uses, but it's difficult to work with and some web hosts don't give you the access you'd need to implement it correctly. I installed a PERL script (for an autoresponder) last year but otherwise the last time I wrote PERL code was in 1998.

The best place for you to start is the W3 Schools, an excellent coding resource for every online programming language.

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials

I would suggest that you start by brushing up on your HTML, although you say you know it I suspect you'll find that there are aspects of it you don't know. From there I would move on to studying CSS, it's not a programming language but it's vital knowlege to building a modern site.

After that learn the basics of JavaScript, the beauty of JavaScript (and HTML and CSS) is that you can try your "experiments" on your own computer without using your web host. If you want to be a really good programmer you should also study and understand the Document Object Model (DOM), once you do a whole new world will open up to you.

Finally, when you feel confident with HTML, CSS and JavaScript you could start learning PHP. You will find the knowledge of HTML and JavaScript you have gained will make learning this a lot easier.

If you plan on working on the Internet for a living you will find that the time invested in learning this stuff will really pay off.

Best of luck in your studies

Bill

Hello! :-) It sounds like you want more information on how to
use Perl. There are a lot of tutorials on YouTube that are really
good and that you can learn a lot from. Here is one set of free
tutorials you might enjoy watching:

YouTube - Perl Tutorial 1 - Active Perl, Perl Editor, Hello World

You can find subsequent tutorials on the right hand side of
YouTube once you load that initial tutorial video. Hopefully you
find the above link useful.

I'll pile on the Perl is not the best language for you to start with wagon... UNLESS... you are programmer already. If you have a programming background, you may find Perl the best choice.

I do both, but prefer PHP in almost all circumstances. Most of the guys in my shop though choose Perl as their language of choice to put together a website quickly, and can do so as quickly as I do PHP. They've been in the Perl world for easily 15 years though.