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On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Viktor wrote:
> Let's take this topic into a more concrete scenario. New boss, company
> reorg, cross-training is enforced and now DBA'S's are going to be split
> into development groups. Need to learn Perl(looking forward to it
> actually!!!) and Java. Books, web sites, docs - all these material is
> great. But what if you're expected to learn fast and I can learn
> quickly, but still, do you guys have some advice on how can one
> "express" teach himself.
>
> Managing expectation is one thing I need to talk with boss about. Surely
> I would not't want to be overwhelmed with stuff at the beginning. But
> at the same time I am kinda excited about picking up on Java and Perl.
> The questions is what are the tricks and tips for learning on a fast
> track?
For Perl, hang out a lot at perlmonks.org. Ok, that's just one more thing for you to read, but there's some good wisdom to be found there, some very smart Perl folks there, akin to the caliber of Oracle gurus found in this group.
As for fast track, aint no learnin' like doin'. If I were in your situation, here's what I would be doing:
Devour a good tutorial book, working through the examples. For Perl, O'Reilly's Learning Perl. For Java, O'Reilly's Head First Java ("Don't let the pictures fool you...") HFJ is really quite good. When I first saw it I thought, Oh no, O'Reilly has stooped to the "for Dummies" level, but such was not the case at all. Emphasis here on 'working through the examples'. Also, as I mentioned above, hang out at 'guru' spots like this list, or perlmonks.org. (Not sure where the real guru spots are for Java...)
Looking back on my own learning experience with Perl, I've read a lot of stuff, but it wasn't until I really started getting my hands dirty with it on a couple of bigger projects that it started to become more natural to me. If you have the free time and resources, set up a home-lab with Apache/mod_perl and write a Perl application to do something useful for you. Then write the same thing in Java (maybe with Tomcat).
HTH,
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