Tutoring over the summer?  Why not.  During the holidays, this tutor won’t necessarily work you too hard….

 
Back in March (see here and here), I opened the topic of programming with the language PERL. Today I’ll “start at the beginning.”

If you want to actually experiment with PERL, the question is, “Are you on Linux, Mac, or Windows?”

If you’re running Linux, you can run PERL programs right now. I know so, because I use Linux – specifically, Ubuntu.

If you’re running a Mac, I’m told that once again, PERL is native to your system, so you can run PERL programs already. However, the last time I used a MAC was the AppleIIcx in 1988; therefore, I don’t speak from experience.

If you’re using Windows, you’ll likely have to download a PERL compiler. Don’t worry; it’s free and I’ve done it before. There are several good bundles you can find on the internet. Some people like ActiveState, some people like Strawberry PERL…I’ve used both.

Going forward, your only other need is a text editor, which is a program that produces files in “plain text.” Document files are not plain text; a typical word processing program will not produce plain text unless specially ordered to (if that’s even possible).

If you’re running Linux, there are many plain text editors to choose from – including, under Ubuntu, one called “text editor”. Under Windows, there’s “Notepad”, which I’ve used faithfully for many years. I think you’ll find it under Accessories.

Once again: I don’t have a Mac. However, I’m sure it contains a text editor that’s easy to find, since Macs are good for stuff like that.

For today, we’ll leave it there. I’ll continue next time with writing a couple of lines of code in the text editor, then hopefully getting it to run:)

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.