Learning Perl, Second Edition

Foreword

Attention, class! Attention! Thank you.

Greetings, aspiring magicians. I hope your summer vacations were enjoyable, if too short. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the College of Wizardry and, more particularly, to this introductory class in the Magic of Perl. I am not your regular instructor, but Professor Schwartz was unavoidably delayed, and has asked me, as the creator of Perl, to step in today and give a few introductory remarks.

Let's see now. Where to begin? How many of you are taking this course as freshmen? I see. Hmmm, I've seen worse in my days. Occasionally. Very occasionally.

Eh? That was a joke. Really! Ah well. No sense of humor, these freshmen.

Well now, what shall I talk about? There are, of course, any number of things I could talk about. I could take the egotistical approach and talk about myself, elucidating all those quirks of genetics and upbringing that brought me to the place of creating Perl, as well as making a fool of myself in general. That might be entertaining, at least to me.

Or I could talk instead about Professor Schwartz, without whose ongoing efforts the world of Perl would be much impoverished, up to and including the fact that this course of instruction wouldn't exist.

That might be enlightening, though I have the feeling you'll know more of Professor Schwartz by the end of this course than I do.

Or, putting aside all this personal puffery, I could simply talk about Perl itself, which is, after all, the subject of this course. ...