Octopus Overlords

I got a quick question I am just finishing up my Masters Degree (MS)in Information Security (Infosec) and am interested in a good place online to learn PERL language or any good books to get acquainted with the language. I have been told that for a network security postion such as security analyst etc.I don't have years to learn this really I need to go form nothing to at least some decent fluency in it, in about 6-8 months. PERL is the most relevant to pick. Currently, I have basic progranmming skill in JAVA, XML, and SQL.Any advice woul dbe appreciated especially anyone in the field.

Dan

Oreilly offers several good books on Perl. IIRC, the one that offers an intro to Perl is called Learning Perl.

Pearl.org has some useful information, not the least being able to read an entire book for free. if you go to the online library there, you'll see it. here's the link for the book itself

its called Beginning Perl, by Simon Cozens and while it probably covers topics you already know (it's written for people who are not already programmers), it is a good place to start. i've been running through this in my spare time at work, and it's easy to follow.

i am also in infosec and finished my bs a little while ago. how was the master's program you took? i haven't had it in me to go back to school just yet, but it is one of my goals to get my masters.

I am very happy with the master's degree and whta it covered material wise. I actually, study via distance education since I currently live overseas and it was a great choice. I loved the distance education online interactive learning environment. I had classmates who were online and physical at the university as well. My bachelors degree was in meteorology an dI recieved in back in 1991 so I went for a mid-career job change. I was 33 when i went back I would highly recommend it if you are interested in promoting up the chain. A master degree focus' alot on the maangement side of infosec and software project management. i am trying to break into the infosec field.Do you have any advice to help?Such as useful certifcations or knowledge of computer languges/ computer systems?Thanks.

Here's a second vote for the O'Reilly series on Perl. Learning Perl and Perl Cookbook (I think it's called) are the two best Perl resources I've ever had, bar none, and were invaluable when I was first learning the language. You should be able to find them pretty cheap by now.

Good luck, by the way. I love the language; though admittedly PHP is probably better for the Web, Perl is the best flat-out parsing language I've ever used.

Edit: Perl is also relatively easy to learn to a useful stage compared to other languages; sometimes it pays to use a language designed by a linguist instead of an engineer.

The O'Reilley perl books are really good. And, as other people have mentioned, you don't need to know very much of it to have something useful.