Perl Weekly #665 - How to get better at Perl?
Tags: perl, news, programming
Published: 2024-04-22 05:14:07

---
title: Perl Weekly #665 - How to get better at Perl?
published: true
description: 
tags: perl, news, programming
canonical_url: https://perlweekly.com/archive/665.html
series: perl-weekly
---

Originally published at [Perl Weekly 665](https://perlweekly.com/archive/665.html)


Hi there!



A new subscriber of the Perl Weekly wrote me:



"I've used Perl for a while but I would love to be fluent in it.  Please let me know if you have any advice."



I think the best way is to work on projects and if you can find nice people who have time to comment on your work then ask them. Depending on your level you might want to try <a href="https://exercism.org/">Exercism</a> that has a Perl track for practice and a built-in system for asking for and getting feedback on the specific exercises. Even better, once you did the exercises you can become a mentor there helping others. That gives you another opportunity to look at these problems and help other people like yourself.



You can participate in <a href="https://theweeklychallenge.org/">The Weekly Challenge</a> run by Mohammad S. Anwar, the other editor of the Perl Weekly.



Longer term I'd suggest to work on a real project.

Either create a project for yourself or you can start contributing to open source projects (e.g. CPAN modules). I'd start trying to contribute to active projects - so ones that saw a release recently.  MetaCPAN has a page showing <a href="https://metacpan.org/recent">recent CPAN releases</a> and the CPAN Digger provides some analytics and suggestions for <a href="https://cpan-digger.perlmaven.com/recent">recent CPAN releases</a>. You can also contributed to MetaCPAN itself. This is also a nice way to contribute back to the Perl community.



Finally, Happy Passover celebrating the freedom of Jews from slavery. Let me wish to you the same we have been saying for hundreds of years at the end of the Passover dinner:



Next year in Jerusalem!

  --
  Your editor: Gabor Szabo.


## Announcements

  
### [The Perl and Raku Conference: Call for Speakers Renewed](https://news.perlfoundation.org/post/tprc2024-call-for-speakers-renewed)

Including this despite the fact that the new dead-line had already passed. Unfortunately the extension was published after the previous edition of the Perl Weekly was published, but maybe they will extend it a few more days. So check it!

  
### [Phishing Attempt on PAUSE Users](https://blogs.perl.org/users/mark_lawrence/2024/04/phishing-attempt-on-pause-users.html)



  

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## Articles

  
### [Orion SSG v5.0.0 released to GitHub](https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1c9lr5u/orion_ssg_v500_released_to_github/)

Fast Perl SSG: now with automatic Language Translation via OCI and translate.pl. <a href="https://github.com/SunStarSys/orion">On GitHub</a>

  
### [Things I learned at the Koha Hackfest in Marseille](https://domm.plix.at/perl/2024_04_things_i_learned_at_kohahackfest.html)

It is always fun to read the event reports by Thomas Klausner (aka domm).

  
### [I can still count browser tabs](https://rjbs.cloud/blog/2024/04/i-can-still-count-browser-tabs/)

Ricardo switched from Chrome to Firefox and thus had to write some Perl code to count his tabs.

  
### [Getting Started with perlimports](https://www.olafalders.com/2024/04/15/getting-started-with-perlimports/)

perlimports is linter that helps you tidy up your code and Olaf explains in the blog why tidying imports is important.

  
### [How to manipulate files on different servers](https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1c5px6o/how_to_manipulate_files_on_different_servers/)

I am rather surprised by the patience of the people who responded.

  
### [Net::SSH::Expect - jump server then to remote device?](https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1c6fen7/netsshexpect_jump_server_then_to_remote_device/)



  
### [Why I Like Perl's OO](https://davidraab.github.io/posts/why-i-like-perls-oo/)

Recommended reading along with some of the comments on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1c6zq24/why_i_like_perls_oo/">Reddit thread</a>. Especially the one by brian d foy talking about the organization and modelling vs. features and syntax.

  

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## Grants

  
### [Grant Application: Dancer 2 Documentation Project](https://news.perlfoundation.org/post/crome_dancer2)

Please comment on this grant application!

  

---

## The Weekly Challenge
<a href="https://theweeklychallenge.org">The Weekly Challenge</a> by <a href="https://manwar.org">Mohammad Sajid Anwar</a> will help you step out of your comfort-zone. We pick one champion at the end of the month from among all of the contributors during the month.
  
### [The Weekly Challenge - 266](https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/perl-weekly-challenge-266)

Welcome to a new week with a couple of fun tasks "Uncommon Words" and "X Matrix". If you are new to the weekly challenge then why not join us and have fun every week. For more information, please read the <a href="https://theweeklychallenge.org/faq">FAQ</a>.

  
### [RECAP - The Weekly Challenge - 265](https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/recap-challenge-265)

Enjoy a quick recap of last week's contributions by Team PWC dealing with the "33% Appearance" and "Completing Word" tasks in Perl and Raku. You will find plenty of solutions to keep you busy.

  
### [TWC265](https://deadmarshal.blogspot.com/2024/04/twc265.html)

Perl regex is in action again and it didn't disappoint as always. Thanks for sharing.

  
### [33% Word](https://raku-musings.com/33pct-word.html)

Raku special keyword 'Nil' is very handy when dealing with undef. Raku Rocks !!!

  
### [Matter Of Fact, It's All Dark](https://jacoby-lpwk.onrender.com/2024/04/15/matter-of-fact-its-all-dark-weekly-challenge-265.html)

Sort using hashes to shortcut uniq is a big thing. You must checkout why? 

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge: Week 265](https://www.braincells.com/perl/2024/04/perl_weekly_challenge_week_265.html)

Perl and Raku in one blog is a deadly combination. You get to know how to do things in Perl to replicate the Raku features.

  
### [The Weekly Challenge - 265](https://challenges.jamessmith.me.uk/weekly/weekly-challenge-265/)

Jame's special is the highlight that you don't want to skip. Always get to learn something new every week.

  
### [For Almost a Third Complete](https://github.sommrey.de/the-bears-den/2024/04/19/ch-265.html)

Using CPAN module can help you get a classic one-liner as Jorg shared in the post. Highly recommended.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 265: 33% Appearance](https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/04/perl-weekly-challenge-265-33-appearance.html)

How would you replicate Bag of Raku in Perl? Checkout the post to find the answer.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 265: Completing Word](https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/04/perl-weekly-challenge-265-completing-word.html)

Raku first then port to Perl, simply incredible. Keep it up great work.

  
### [arrays and dictionaries](https://fluca1978.github.io/2024/04/15/PerlWeeklyChallenge265.html)

Any PostgreSQL fan? Checkout how you would solve the challenge using SQL power. Well done.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 265](https://wlmb.github.io/2024/04/16/PWC265/)

Master of one-liner in Perl. Consistency is the key, wonder how is it possible?

  
### [Completing a Third of an Appearance](https://packy.dardan.com/b/KV)

Mix of Perl, Raku and Python. You pick your favourite, mine is Python since it is new to me.

  
### [Frequent number and shortest word](http://ccgi.campbellsmiths.force9.co.uk/challenge/265)

A very interesting take on Perl regex. First time, seen something like this, brilliant work.

  
### [The Weekly Challenge - 265](https://reiniermaliepaard.nl/perl/pwc/index.php?id=pwc265)

CPAN can never let you down. It has solution for every task. See yourself how?

  
### [The Weekly Challenge #265](https://hatley-software.blogspot.com/2024/04/robbie-hatleys-solutions-to-weekly_16.html)

Short and simple analysis, no nonsense approach. Keep it up great work.

  
### [The Appearance of Completion](https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2024/04/The_Weekly_Challenge_265__The_Appearance_of_Completion.html)

For all Perl fans, I suggest you take a closer look at the last statement. It really surprised me, thanks for sharing.

  
### [Completing Appearance](https://dev.to/simongreennet/completing-appearance-51p0)

Just love the neat and clean solution in Python with surprise element too. Keep sharing.

  

---

## Weekly collections

  
### [NICEPERL's lists](http://niceperl.blogspot.com/)

<a href="https://niceperl.blogspot.com/2024/04/cdxcii-5-great-cpan-modules-released.html">Great CPAN modules released last week</a>;

  

---

## The corner of Gabor
A couple of entries sneaked in by Gabor.
  
### [GitHub Sponsors - A series on giving an receiving 💰](https://dev.to/szabgab/github-sponsors-a-series-on-giving-an-receiving-4fmb)

Recently I decided to renew my efforts to get more sponsors via GitHub Sponsors. In order to understand how to do it better I am going to write a series of articles. This is the first one. At one point I'd also like to feature the Perl-developers who could be supported this way. So far I encountered two people: <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/trapd00r">magnus woldrich</a> and <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/davorg">Dave Cross</a> and <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/szabgab/">myself</a>. I'd like to ask you to 1) Add some sponsorship to these two people so when I write about them there will be a few sponsors already. 2) Let me know if you know about any other Perl-developer who is accepting sponsorships via GitHub Sponsors.

  

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(C) Copyright [Gabor Szabo](https://szabgab.com/)
The articles are copyright the respective authors.