Foundations of Perl
History & Philosophy: Learn why Perl was created by Larry Wall and its focus on "There's More Than One Way to Do It (TMTOWTDI)."
Installation & Setup: Install Perl on Linux/Windows/Mac; use perl -v to check version.
Basic Syntax: Scalars, arrays, and hashes.
Variables & Data Types: Strings, numbers, references.
Operators: Arithmetic, string, logical, and comparison operators.
Core Programming Concepts
Control Structures: if-else, unless, given-when, loops (for, foreach, while, until).
Subroutines: Creating reusable code blocks.
Context: Scalar vs List context—unique to Perl.
Input/Output: File handling (open, print, close).
Regular Expressions: The heart of Perl—pattern matching, substitution, modifiers.
Intermediate Perl
References & Complex Data Structures: Arrays of arrays, hashes of hashes.
Modules & Packages: Writing reusable modules.
CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network): Installing and using community libraries.
Error Handling: eval, die, warn, and exception handling.
Command-line Interaction: Using Perl for scripting and automation.
Advanced Perl
Object-Oriented Programming in Perl: Bless, classes, methods, and Moose/Moo framework.
Regular Expressions Mastery: Advanced regex, lookahead/lookbehind, named groups.
Networking & Web Programming: LWP, HTTP::Tiny, REST APIs.
Database Connectivity: DBI module for connecting to SQL databases.
Text Processing: Parsing large datasets, log files, and CSVs.
Specialized Domains
System Administration: Automating system tasks with Perl.
Bioinformatics: Perl in genome analysis and data pipelines.
Finance & Trading: Legacy Perl systems in banks and stock exchanges.
Web Development: CGI scripts, Catalyst/Dancer frameworks.
Tools & Ecosystem
Testing in Perl: Test::More, TAP framework.
Version Management: Perlbrew, plenv.
Debugging: Perl debugger (perl -d).
Best Practices: use strict; use warnings; coding style guides.
Projects to Build Mastery
Build a log file analyzer with regex.
Automate daily backup scripts for Linux.
Create a simple web scraper using LWP.
Develop a Perl module and publish it on CPAN.
Build a small database-driven app with DBI.
Perl may not be the trendiest language today, but its power, flexibility, and mature ecosystem make it indispensable in many legacy and specialized environments. By following this roadmap starting with basics, mastering regex, learning modules, and tackling projects you’ll gain both theoretical and practical knowledge to handle real-world Perl applications. Whether for scripting, automation, or domain-specific work, Perl expertise remains a valuable skill to add to your programming toolkit.
