PERL.... Someone sent me a few ebookson Perl. I have....?

Question

nothing to do for the next couple of weeks. Should I read them and learn Perl? Is it worth reading? Or should I just delete them. Its a few Oreilly books.

Like how important is Perl? And is it easy enough for me to do on my own with just these books?

What I mean is, what's the use of learning something if you don't know its significance? I know nothing about scripting etc. (No nothing). A year down the line, I'll be looking for entry level jobs in s/w. Considering that should i learn perl?

Sorry Hari,but the whole folder is greater than 10 MB. I got the stuff on a CD, when I was getting sum otherstuff from a guy.

Its 6 books-

Perl in a Nutshell
Learning Perl
Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
Programming Perl
Advanced Perl Programming
Perl Cookbook

Answer 1

Hey,
Count yourself lucky. If it is oreilly book pass it on to me !. Perl is something which is much sought after skillset in lines with scripting viz., sh and bash. But before you jump into it, learn to be a poweruser in linux or solaris. It adds weight to your resume.
Scripting helps in automating jobs on a day to day basis.
Perl is so powerful that you can scale it up day by day and reach zenith.
You can use perl even to control huge clusters like the one that runs YAHOO !!!
Go ahead and dive into the sea and get perl !!!

Answer 2

YES. Learn perl. It's a great scripting language. If you are going into s/w, you will find this useful. I don't know if these books are helpful, though. I took a class (by the guy who wrote the oreilly book), and found the notes from the class more helpful than the book.

Answer 3

It doesn't hurt to learn languages, even obsolete ones because they help your programming fundamentals. If you got the time, I'd say go ahead and learn it. Personally, I don't know how much it is used anymore, but it all helps in the end to keep you in practice.

Answer 4

Try to learn it.
It is too easy.