Hi, Kris here. I downloaded ActivePerl 5.5 from your site this morning, expecting to go gung-ho into learing the language. Well their's been a few problems-but not from this site in which I downloaded windows installer 1.1 and ActivePerl and before that in accordance to the book, I downloaded Microsoft Dcom for Windows 95, which they said I needed for perl. Anyway I am just dying to learn perl,after seeing the perl.com page and perl shareware. But I am frustrated by not being able to start. I followed the books advice(sams teach yourself Perl in 21 days), including trying to create the infamous first program "helloworld". I typed everything in correctly, and to my turmoil it didn't run. So I downloaded the source code from the book,saved etc...and it still didn't run. It's installed correctly I used the perl -version command to see if it is on the system. Here are the results I get.

I type in(probably so elementary for you guys,should be for me)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

print "Hello, World!n";

then I save it in Notepad(?) to the perl folder,c drive, as hello.pl Should I save it as text file or all files?

then I type in the commands to run the script:

C:perl> perl -w hello.pl

and here is what follows:

unquoted string "perl" may clash with future rserved word at-line 4
backslash found where operator expected at line-4, near "perl"
unquoted string "perl" may clash with future reserved word at-line 4
unquoted string "hello" may clash with future reserved word at-line 4

I would be gracious for any help, I am at wit's end and it's only my first day. I downloaded everything applicable: ActivePerl 5.5-because that's what the book covers,dcom, and installer. I do not possess a great understanding of dos. But if anyone out at the activestate could send me on my way-I read the faq's, and documentations, but it doesn't mean a lot when your a perl neophyte. But seriously what your doing in great and furthering the language. I wouldn't have bothered to learn perl if I had to build it myself and learn c. So thanks for the software and please if possible walk me through the process. The book seems pretty self-explanatory I just need to get back on my feet and get the ball rolling. Thanks

Kris Douglas
will@sacbeemail.com