Perl for Web Site Management

Chapter 21. Where to Go Next

Back at the beginning of this book, I spoke about the process of learning Perl for web development as being akin to mountain climbing. To return to that metaphor, you’ve now reached the summit and have hopefully picked up some useful tools and skills along the way. Looking back at your starting point, you should feel a nice sense of accomplishment. It’s been a long ascent, with many challenges to overcome, and you’ve done a great job to come so far. Congratulations.

Now, as promised, it’s time to look beyond the current peak and realize that what you’ve learned in this book is really just the beginning of the journey. There are many more peaks stretching beyond this one, higher peaks, with many new challenges.

This book took an eclectic approach. As a reflection of my own experience, it presented a little bit of everything. What path you take from this point is up to you. You might continue as you’ve started, picking up a little of this and a little of that on your way to becoming an ever-more-capable generalist. Or you might choose to specialize in a particular area.

With that in mind, here is a brief overview of where you might choose to go next.

Unix System Administration

Running Unix or Unix-like computer systems is a full-time task for many people. For many others it’s an important component of their larger duties. Once you make the leap to having your own, dedicated web server, it’s a task that might easily end up being yours. Even if you have ...