Houston.pm

We covered several ways to test Perl scripts and modules, focusing mostly on Test::More. We also discussed an interesting technique to make a script testable as a module.

We began a rapid dive into Object Oriented programming in Perl. We started with the basics of what constitutes object oriented programming (OOP). Then, we covered how these concepts are implemented with Perl. The session should be just enough to get you started in OOP with Perl.

Wade gave a brief introduction to the Perl DBI. The DBI is Perl's new modular relational database framework. We discussed how to call the DBI for a particular RDBMS, a little SQL overview, and some of the ways to extract data with DBI.

Wade gave a quick introduction to Perl/TK. We walked through building a simple GUI and covered a few techniques for making Perl/Tk programs more maintainable.

We got into CGI.pm since we had covered the basics of what you could do with TT2 without using CGI, so we covered enough of CGI.pm to allow continued exploration of TT2 if desired.

This presentation began a series on Perl and the Internet with the Template Toolkit.

This presentation was a grab-bag of some important features of the language, including statement modifiers, loop control, regular expression options, and the map operator.

The standard Perl distribution comes with a large number of goodies in the form of standard modules. Although there was not enough time to cover all of these modules in depth, Chuck did cover many of the most useful modules.

April didn't have slides as we discussed a mail conversion project and the tools used to handle problems.

As you should expect from Perl, there are several ways to process command line options. Chuck covers several methods from manual processing through several modules that provide better interfaces.

Although the focus of the presentation was benchmarking, Chuck covered other topics such as the DATA file handle and the differences between our and my variables.

One of the places that Perl really shines is on the command line. Although most of the Perl code you write will live in programs, Perl makes it easy to solve quick problems with command line parameters. Chuck covers the most commonly needed command line options and some operators that are particularly useful in this mode.

Chuck gives an overview of Perl's regular expressions. This topic is an ongoing source for questions from new and experienced Perl programmers.