Bug#215627: RFP: SiIntroProgPerl -- teaches programming, in Perl, and regular expressions

[root <siward.via@freeler.nl>]

Package: wnpp
Version: N/A; reported 2003-10-13
Severity: wishlist

* Package name    : SiIntroProgPerl
  Version         : 1
  Upstream Author : Siward de Groot <siward.via@freeler.nl>
* URL             : http://www.siward.via.freeler.nl/IPP.txt
* License         : GPL
  Description     : teaches programming, in Perl, and regular expressions

Long Description :

"Siward's Introduction to Programming with Perl"

   tries to teach programming.
   does this by teaching programming in Perl language.
   is what i wrote to register my own learning of perl,
     so i would learn and create a reference manual at same time.

 I wrote this in form of a tutorial, because
   -it forces me to be thorough
      when i learn Perl, i want to do it well,
      though i dont strive to become a Perl expert.
   -it is a step by step way, with each step tested, to provide a solid basis
   -it may be possible to include this in debian,
      to turn users into programmers, and thus contribute to debian.

  target audience is any (woudld-be) free-software user that doesnt know Perl yet
     (maybe a Debian maintainer, or a newbie, or an experienced user of another OS),
     plus those who would like to learn to use regular expressions,
       or would simply like to have a good overview of it.

It contains :

 Part 1
  teaches basics of programming : from "if" statement to subroutines.
  as it only teaches basics, it is incomplete,
    and therefore it also includes some info about Perl's manpages,
    which are much more detailed.
  at end of this part is a short and not very good section about debugging.
Part 2
  teaches regular expressions as they exist in Perl
    (regular expressions in grep and sed are (very limited) subsets of this).
  due to this being a limited subject, this part is nearly crystal-clear.
Part 3
  intends to provide a broad and thorough overview of rest of Perl :
    - quoting,
    - shortcuts,
    - precedence, and
    - a complete list of Perl's built-in functions,
        with description and example for each of them.
Part 4
  is currently very incomplete, should contain :
  talks about using Perl on your Linux system.
    - other programming languages and programs (shell, C, X, tcl/tk)
        and how to use them from Perl, or use Perl from them.
    - getting commandline arguments and environment variables in a Perl script

 I basically wrote it to teach myself Perl and regexps,
   and like to share it with free-software community,
   but now that i know enough Perl for my needs
     (and nearly all I know about Perl is in this tutorial)
   my writing speed has slowed down a lot.
 I hope including it in Debian may result in other people adding parts that they need.

 I have spent last weekend trying to remove TODOs from it,
   but there are still a lot left,
   i'll be spending a couple of hours a week on it,
     so it should be in good (but not complete) state soon.
 It is already useable for learning Perl and regular expressions.
 I didnt have time to work on it to get it into woody,
   i hope it'll make sarge.

I hope someone will package it.
Thanks in advance.

 Siward

-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux Si 2.4.16-586 #1 Wed Nov 28 08:21:15 EST 2001 i586
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C