[Sussex] Perl Talk [WAS:] Updated Grep, Sed and RegExp links from August moot

[Dominic Humphries]

On Fri, 2011-09-16 at 01:22 +0100, Fay Zee wrote:

> I'm all for re-usability. And I like the idea of script files I can
> keep handy to run with different inputs. Actually, I learned some
> (very) basic C scripts on a Linux course I did years ago

C was the first language I started learning, and I like many things
about it, but manipulating strings of text isn't its strong point.
Conversely, Perl can do amazing things with strings :o)
> 
> Since starting to learn grep and sed, I've discovered several tasks,
> especially at work, where I could make use of them. By contrast, the
> Windows XP dos prompt is clunky and its commands much weaker and so I
> had already decided I would have to turn to learning batch files in
> order to use dir and find efficiently.

DOS barely deserves to be called a command line :o) The more-recent
powershell is an improvement, but it's still nowhere near the
sophistication of *nix shells like Bash, Csh & Zsh, IMHO.

> > I've planned giving a talk to SLUG about Perl at some point, let me
> know
> > if it'd be of enough interest that I should stop thinking and start
> > planning :o)
> 
> That would be quite nice. As the perl talk will be techie, how about
> tailoring the perl script to something that members are keenest on.
> What I've heard in our meetings so far is that photo management,
> display, search and batch manipulation are popular tasks. Could you
> develop some scripts along those lines?

I was aiming to keep it relatively low on the techie scale, but
certainly it's good to have some ideas as to what kinds of scripts
people might find useful.

I'll see what I can come up with!

Dominic