Programming Perl, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2. Bits and Pieces

We're going to start small, so this chapter is about the elements of Perl.

Since we're starting small, the progression through the next several chapters is necessarily from small to large. That is, we take a bottom-up approach, beginning with the smallest components of Perl programs and building them into more elaborate structures, much like molecules are built out of atoms. The disadvantage of this approach is that you don't necessarily get the Big Picture before getting lost in a welter of details. The advantage is that you can understand the examples as we go along. (If you're a top-down person, just turn the book over and read the chapters backward.)

Each chapter does build on the preceding chapter (or the subsequent chapter, if you're reading backward), so you'll need to be careful if you're the sort of person who skips around.

You're certainly welcome to peek at the reference materials toward the end of the book as we go along. (That doesn't count as skipping around.) In particular, any isolated word in typewriter font is likely to be found in Chapter 29. And although we've tried to stay operating-system neutral, if you are unfamiliar with Unix terminology and run into a word that doesn't seem to mean what you think it ought to mean, you should check whether the word is in the Glossary. If the Glossary doesn't work, the index probably will.

Atoms

Although there are various invisible things going on behind the scenes that we'll explain presently, the ...