We got into CGI.pm since we had covered the basics
of what you could do with TT2 without using CGI, so we covered
enough of CGI.pm to allow continued exploration of TT2 if
desired.
This presentation was a grab-bag of some important
features of the language, including statement modifiers, loop control,
regular expression options, and the map operator.
The standard Perl distribution comes with a large
number of goodies in the form of standard modules. Although there was
not enough time to cover all of these modules in depth, Chuck did
cover many of the most useful modules.
As you should expect from Perl, there are several
ways to process command line options. Chuck covers several methods
from manual processing through several modules that provide better
interfaces.
Although the focus of the presentation was
benchmarking, Chuck covered other topics such as the
DATA file handle and the differences between
our and my variables.
One of the places that Perl really shines is
on the command line. Although most of the Perl code you write will
live in programs, Perl makes it easy to solve quick problems with
command line parameters. Chuck covers the most commonly needed command
line options and some operators that are particularly useful in this
mode.
Chuck began our regular Perl meetings with a
script for searching Perl's FAQs for questions relating to a keyword
or phrase. He shows the various steps he used to develop this program
and in the process showed a sampling of Perl's features.
