Larry Wall | Tom Christiansen | Jon Orwant
Larry Wall wrote Perl and he wrote
Programming Perl. Better yet, he writes amusingly and well--all of which comes across in this latest edition of the definitive guide to the language.
Like Topsy, Perl just grew, and as a result the need for a third edition came about. It's now over 1,000 pages, which it needs to be, as it performs several different duties. First, it's an introduction to the Perl language for those who are new to programming; also, it's a guide for those who are coming from other languages; and, finally, it's a Perl language reference.
Among Larry Wall's other pursuits is being a linguist, and it's perhaps for this reason that Perl is a peculiarly flexible language with many routes to achieving the same ends, as the authors ably demonstrate. It's also extensible in several ways, designed to work with many other languages. Also, as it's largely interpreted, programs written in Perl tend to run unmodified on a variety of platforms--although platform-specific Perl modules and programming practices are also discussed.
A major strength of Programming Perl is the way subject areas are approached from several directions. This constant shift of viewpoint eliminates blind spots in the reader's understanding and provides a pleasing echo of the way Perl itself can take many routes from here to there.
Because the Perl community is both knowledgeable and active, the language covers much more ground here than in the previous edition. Even if you have both previous editions, you'll want this latest version--if only for the new jokes. --Steve Patient, amazon.co.uk
1 Impress everyone with regular expressions
I have to admit that before using this book I used "Learning Perl." However everything that I learned in the first book was in the first chapter of this book. I'm very impressed with the layout of this book. Every time I turned a new page I found something else I had to try. One paragraph in chapter six prime outlines the whole reason for really wanting to use pearl.
"Perl doesn't just glue together other computer languages. It also glues together command line interpreters, operating systems, processes, machines, devices, networks, databases, institutions, cultures, web pages, GUIs, peers, servers, and clients, not to mention people like system administrators, users, and of course, hackers, both not be in nice. In fact pearl is rather competitive about cooperative."
This book is well designed to get you off the Ground and hit the deck running. You won't be left standing there like a sitting duck. I doubt that I can give it enough stars.
2 great book for perl beginners
I was beginning to learn perl and found this book very useful. Later I learnt that it has a lot to offer to the more advanced user of perl as well. Great book to start with.
3 Best Perl Book around...
I learned Perl from man pages a while ago... Then got this book about five or so years ago when I started teaching a class on Perl. Let me tell you, this is the best Perl book out there...
You do need to be able to program to understand this book---and to appreciate many of the insights/jokes it makes. This book is funny! It spends -some- time explaining the syntax, etc., but the true value of this book comes from explaining the motivation for various language features. The philosophy behind Perl. Once you get the philosophy behind Perl, the entire language starts to make a lot of sense---it becomes beautiful, easy to read, understand, etc. The book also answers questions like ``why should I learn Perl?'', and ``what makes it better than other languages?''
The way that I use the book is (in class): You read the first 5 chapters to learn the language (actually, the first 2 chapters are enough to give you a good grasp of how to do pretty much anything), then the rest of the book becomes a pretty good reference on how to do specific things (like networking, threads, OOP, etc.).
Oh, and I use Perl every day for pretty much everything. My rule: if it needs speed, use C, if it needs a GUI, use Java or C#, if it's web-based, use PHP, and for everything else (no particular need; 99% of the stuff that I do) use Perl.
4 Daunting, but so is life
For those reviewers complaining about the complexity of this book, you should bear in mind that this is aimed at people with some Perl experience and does in fact provide extremely useful information.
It is not intended to be read from cover to cover, rather it servers as an encylopedia or verbose dictionary of Perl. The occasional funny bits break up what is otherwise a fairly dry book.
If you want examples etc then get Learning Perl or the Perl Cookbook from the same publisher. In fact if you are serious about Perl you should have all three books.
5 the quintessential perl source
It is nearly impossible to deprecate the book written by the author of a language. Just as there will be no way to replace Kernighan and Ritchie's "The C Programming Language", there will also never be a book that can replace Larry Wall's "Programming Perl".
"Programming Perl" is more then just a tutorial: it's a reference to the Perl language, the perl interpreter, and the Perl mindset. the first several chapters explain--in depth--the features of the Perl language. The middle section offers an explanation of some of the concepts, technologies and hurdles of modern Perl, including Unicode, IPC, threading, and even mixed programming with C. The final section explains all the little "extras" that make Perl so versatile: CPAN, the standard modules, and hints on portability and documentation.
nearly 300 pages of reference tables and charts at the end, round out this magnificent book. This is invaluable for an Perl programmer.
6 Rambles on, Perl itself is tricky to use
This book is extremeley disorganized and confusing, much like the Perl language itself. The books is filled with clever puns which add nothing to the book except more pages. The internet owes much to Perl, but the language itself is very ad-hoc, filled with confusing and unnecessary symbols ($, $_, @, ->), has a terrible object model, and scales very poorly to larger programs. If you have any choice in the matter, choose Python instead, which is a far more elegant language (Books: Learning Python for beginners or Python in a Nutshell for more advanced user). If you must use Perl, there must be better books than this.
7 Do not but this book!
If you are an Engineer trying to make best use of your valuable time, do not buy this book. I am not joking.
The author/authors wrote massive paragraphs on and on in every chapter. They should have explained what they wanted instead, with an example or two. Examples speak louder than tons and tons of paragraphs. I do not think anyone will have time to read each of those paragraphs. For example, read the chapter on Objects, Chapter 12. I bet the paragraphs in this book and in Chapter 12 will you confused and angry. That is how much unpleasant this book is. I have had a better experience referring to The Perl Cookbook, Perl How to Program by Deitel and Learning Perl. I was able to write better programs in less time by referring to those three books instead of this book. I read Programming Perl for 2 weeks and in the end was angry at myself wasting two weeks of precious time reading through all the crappy explanations and tons and tons of paragraphs in this book.
Get Perl Cookbook, Perl How to Program. These two books will be more than sufficient to help you write Perl Scripts in a very short time.
8 The best book on Perl - but you can't just read it
This is the ultimate perl book - but there's so much in it, you can't just read it. Read "Learning Perl", and the write some perl for a while. Then read the first 14 chapters of "Programming Perl", and write some more perl. Then read the first 14 chapters again, and keep writing Perl. Then move on to the rest of the book.
Also, read Lord of the Rings first - it makes the examples much, much easier to follow.
9 The Perl Bible. And a delightful read.
I learned Perl by reading this book twice. I like this book, it never leaves my desk.
10 you have to put up with a lot of annoying chattter
It is a good book and you can learn a lot. However, the "comedy," which is really just a lot of annoying chatter, get in the way a great deal.
11 oreily perl book
NOT FOR THE BEGINNER TO PERL!!!! I have spent 3 days with this book and do not know much more that i did 4 days ago about perl. It is way over my head and i am a VB programmer. The book is well written for an advanced user, but that wasn't/isn't me.
12 The author talks too much
I had read only 5 chapters and didn't tolerate it anymore. The author talks too much.. each 10 lines he wrote anything about his life. I had gotten nervous. Buy it by a humour book, dont a programming book.
13 The Perl programming bible
This is the Perl programming bible. It's all in here. However there is a caveat, it's a bible so it has some religion in it. The style is somewhat ambling at times and occasionally obtuse. So if you are trying to learn Perl from scratch, read the aptly named "Learning Perl" book first (as I did). This book will then serve as an excellent guide to the more advanced features and a reference.
14 Good introduction
This isn't the book for a first-time programmer. Outside of that, it's a great reference. Maybe the more advanced language features need more clarification, but it's plenty to get you going on your first few Perl programs.
Perl is a pleasant oddity among programming langauges. It has lots of features that make it great as a "glue" language, for holding other programs together and for doing those irksome little translations between incompatible formats. Those are the things that shell scripts used to do: setting up files, command lines, and environment variables, checking results, preparing reports. Perl does all that, better, and gives you the full power of a programming language on top of it all. That means the transformations aren't at the mercy of available filters, and don't count on the dozen different syntaxes of the dozen different filter programs. It's a great language for all those little one-off tasks that crop up, especially in system and web admin.
That's my problem with Perl, though - the free-wheeling, never-look-back, whatever-works spirit of the people who use Perl. I know there are disciplined, competent software engineers who develop and use Perl, and I don't mean to disparage them at all. Still, the gonzo style that's so common and the revival tent spirit of books like this put me off a bit.
The language is very useful, and make lots of hard jobs easy. This book, despite its true-believer style, gives a thorough introduction to the language and its core APIs.
15 I sold my book back
The humor was too much for me. I tried to be calm and focus on learning Perl. But I gave up after three chapters. The authors take it too casually like a walk in the park, and try strange attempts too seriously to compare Perl with english language. I sold my book back on Amazon and lost nearly 20 dollars in the bargain. But still give it 3 stars because there are sure people who like to do things the light way. As for me, I like books who talk sense, I dont have time to waste reading jokes and silly footnotes.
16 Terrible Information
This book I bought after reading Elizebeth Castros's book "Perl And CGI for the Worl Wide Web". Personally I thought this book would be an intruiging dive into the world of Perl. I was dissapointed at the authors lack of coverage. He goes into this dumb speech about all the nooks and crannies; but fails at giving the reader a simple or otherwise not-so-simple example about a certain perl concept to make the subject more real to the reader. Of course I was able to apply out of curiousity the short examples. But that was because I read Elizebeth Castros's book "Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web"! I could not even apply the data in this book without my head getting spinny!And then running into a wall. Larry Wall's wall har har har! Well the humor is funny. But the book is not worth my time. Im sad that I wasted my precious time reading this junk!
If your interested in progressing to a higher learning level read the book "Core Perl" there are some good O'Reilly books out there, this one sucks! And you may prefer to read the other O'Reilly book about Perl. Of course other readers gave it high praise but they of course probably read other books and used this one as an idiosyncracy! Bypass this one fellas!
17 Mandatory for Perl programming, but maddening all the same
This book is like the Perl tax: everyone involved with Perl needs to pay out and get it, whether they want to or not. There is no other place where all the innards and tricky bits of Perl are laid bare. In that regard it's a bit like sendmail admins having to buy the bat book (the o'reilly sendmail book).
But unlike the bat book, and much as I respect this book and its authors, I find using it absolutely infuriating, not least because the index is a mess. Remember that perl is full of obscure little atoms like ., ^, $* and so on. You need an index that lists every darn one and their combinations. Unfortunately, the indexers of this book did not complete the job, which means that if you quickly want to refresh your memory about something small but important (like: whats the regular expression for whitespace, or is it .= or =. for string appends), you have to go trawling through the whole book.
18 Not for beginners, but an absolute necessity!
I read the first edition of this book.
After reading some of the reviews here, I am reminded of when I first picked up this book and didn't have the background to fully appreciate it.
After using Perl for several years doing Internet programming, and being exposed to all the languages it's possible to use, I still remain devoted to the work of this man, Larry Wall for what I believe to be the greatest contribution of all to humanity and to computer science.
I stopped here to reaffirm that the third edition will cover Object Oriented programming. Although nobody mentions this, I'm sure he will, and another book I have said it would.
Before brushing up on Object Oriented programming for Perl, I decided to re-read Learning Perl and Programming Perl (though I only had the first editions). Unlike the first times I attempted to read these two books, this time I was dumbfounded at how much info they (Larry and Randal) could cram into such a short place. One thing builds upon another. Everything written, the examples and all, took on new meaning. This was exciting reading because all the problems that it took me years to even identify were spelled out before me with examples I could immediately understand. There are many ways to do things in Perl, and my way, the obvious way, usually turns out to be the long way. Reading these books and adopting some new techniques they mention could literally save me years of time!
It's a lot like learning music. Unless someone tells you why you have to learn scales, you won't enjoy doing it and unless you stick with it long enough, you'll never learn why you need to know them.
I guess I'd have to say that sooner or later you will need these two books to be truly effective as a Perl programmer, but if you are a beginner, you won't know enough about Perl to realize why these are really great books. If you have several years of Perl experience, then these books will show you how to be incredibly effective, incredibly organized, and best of all, incredibly lazy!
One thing that makes Perl so strong, is that anything that has ever been done with Unix can be done with Perl. If you're operating equipment with Microsoft software, you're missing half the fun.
This book really shines if you already love Perl and worship those who spent enormous amounts of time making their priceless contributions.
This is probably not a good book if you're new to Perl, in a hurry, and are trying to debug some broken code.
I found "Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days" by Sams Publishing to be all I needed in my early days. I only wish I had the ability to appreciate the information in these other two books then.
I am convinced that Perl is the highest level programming language there is and there is absolutely nothing that can't be done with it in less time and with less code than any other language.
Now I'm going to buy a brand new Programming Perl 3rd edition and I think I'll even have it shipped overnight!
19 great book, nice reference
Programming Perl is a great reference book for Perl which is something one would expect considering it comes from the creator of perl himself! The index is very well done and includes all of the *weird* characters which perl likes to use such as $_, @_, etc..
If you're new to perl, then I'd suggest also purchasing "Learning Perl" by the same publisher. It's probably a bit easier to use when just picking up the language - but the reference book is a must have as well.
20 Best Perl book
This is the definitive book on Perl. First off, it's from Larry, the main who invented and is maintaining Perl. Second, it's a very well written and edited book that provides some concise material both on the syntax and the philosophy of Perl. A must read for Perl programmers. Period.
21 Poorly Written, Poorly Originized, Highly Overrated
For somebody who is a "linguist", Larry Wall has a horrid writing style that interferes with learning important concepts. For example, he constantly names object "thingys". For example:
...but a hard reference just points to a thingy. It doesn't know (or care) whether there are any other references to the thingy, or whether any of those references are through variables. Hence, a hard rerefence can refer to an anonymous thingy. As such anonymous thingies...
The minute you notice this, you stop reading and just count all the references to "thingy" on a page. its a staggering number. By writting in this style, it seriously detracts from the readablity. I didn't buy this book for it's writing style, I bought it as a reference to perl. Surely there is a better term then "thingy". In fact, I'm not even sure what "thingy" is susposed to refer to as I have yet to find a definition in the book.
Plus he always uses "just" to modify his sentences. This gives this book a very condecending tone as if all these concepts are JUST obvious (you idiot). "to do this, just blah blah" . I hate to say it, but this "everything is obvious" attitude is rife in the perl community and it's a shame that Larry promotes it in his book. Nothing is "just" and nothing is obvious, if it was, why are you "just" spending 4 pages talking about it?
Poorly written and highly overrated. No good for beginners or experts. There has to be a better book out there on perl then this "bible".
22 The ultimate reference book for programming PERL
At the title says, this book is about Programming Perl. For those who are looking for a tutorial on Perl, this is not the book to start with, you should try "Learning Perl", or one of the many other starter books for Perl. I use this book as my standard reference to the Perl language, and it has never let me down.
23 Urghh..
I have a Computer Science degree, I am familiar with C++ and Unix. I figured with the awful economy and me having a hard time finding a job, it might be about time for me to learn Perl (among other things). So I saw the glowing reviews of this book and purchased it.
I honestly gleaned more about Perl from a dinky little 5 minute online tutorial than I can squeeze out of this. I just CANNOT bite into this book; there's too much garbage for people who don't know the difference betwen Unix and French. There is no decent pace, no steady flow of teaching, no way to simply and utterly learn how to program in Perl. The structure is so frustrating, I've had the urge to rip my hair out several times.
Bottom line: If you want to learn ABOUT Perl, this is the book for you. If you want to LEARN Perl, don't bother. Look for a tutorial book instead.
24 Most awesome PERL book
This is indeed the most awesome PERL book.
Written by Larry Wall, who is Mr. Perl.
If you get but once PERL book, get this one,
25 The camel goes into the forest with guts
Ahum!. The absolute reference. If you get lost somewhere in a place without many resources for survival, food or drink, but with a book, try it not to be this one. Perhaps too caloric specifically.... yeah. Is a logical bomb of Perl... a strong weapon in the hands of an aficionado. This is the demostration that Perl wasn't intended to be easy to understand, intededly. Unfortunately, many people doesn't use pop (package oriented programming), or perl, (package entertainment reoriented language) itself and that's why the misleading.
Thanks, Larry, it's one of the most imperfectly conserved books I have due and due to intellective uses only. Great!
26 bible, sure, but over-rated
I guess I just prefer a book better from someone who DIDN'T invent the language. That is, a book from another perspective seems to point out the idiosyncracies of a language, etc. The only chapter of this book that I use is the 200 page one on Functions which, as its name implies, lists every Perl function and a basic couple of paragraphs about using that function. I've used Perl for years, but only resort to O'Reilly when I'm desperate. I expected a lot more from a book that is so well know.
While not nerely as comprehensive, I prefer the book Cross-Platform Perl. I guess it's more of a tutorial (probably similary to O'Reilly Learning Perl).
Only get this book if you're looking for a reference and already know perl. If you're looking for a book that will both teach you the language and serve as a reference after that, I'd avoid this one.
27 Recommended for any Perl bookshelf
I bought this book in 1998 when I was first learning Perl. Five years later as I write this review, this book doesn't cease to be the first place I turn for help. The first part of the book does a great job of explaining Perl concepts, especially pattern matching and regular expressions (which have a book of their own). The next part, which is what I now primarily use, is the function reference. I admit I have only taken advantage of part of the book's usefulness, since I haven't done much with Perl modules, a reference to which is also included.
Plus, the authors inject just enough light humor to make your programming project bearable. :) If I didn't find my current copy so helpful already, I'd buy a newer edition.
28 Not for Learning
I bought a book, and was very unsatisfied for the following reasons:
1. It's not good for someone who wants to learn Perl. I'm fairly competent in C++, Java and VB and have more than four years of programming experience, still I could not learn what perl is about from this book. The authors seems to jump from one 'fact' to another, rather than presenting a well formed flow of teaching. The small but crutial facts (such as variable $_) are not explained in detail; may be because the authors are experts, they thought that anybody knew them by default. But that seems to be a mistake because those fatcs are not common in other languages and are new to even experienced C++ or Java programmers.
2. The author seems to prefer explaining why he designed perl in such a way to teaching how perl works. There are a lot of justifications in each section why perl is better. So, if you are a curious Perl fan, this book may be the one for you. If you are new to language and want to learn, the book will only discourage you.
3. Examples are very poorly chosen. Rather than introducing the bare minimum to understand a new concept, they provide a lot of unrelated new (probably advanced) concepts that distracts the reader. And the author goes on explaining those unrelated things on-the-spot, keeping the original topic aside; This is probably due to authors preference to real-world examples, and his dislike to write simple example programs even for a book ....
4. Almost every section has annoying forward references.
Summary: If you are a computer linguist, you already know Perl and are interested in the internals of language design, this book would probably interest you. But if you want to learn, go somewhere else. I think this book would have better be named "Perl: Technical Reference". But even for such a book, it's too inconvenient having to dig the long paragraphs just to find a minute detail. Why couldn't he use techniques other authors use to make their books easy-to-read - rather than adding a lot of not-so-funny jokes as footnotes?
29 You need this if you are a Perl programmer, or think you are
The subject says it all. If you want to code in Perl, you'll need to know this book. This, following Learning Perl, will qualiify you to be the Perl programmer that many people *think* they are or would like to be.
30 A good book to make one frustrated
Hello Everyone,
I dont have any good comments to make about this book. I read this book and at the end couldn't summarize what I learnt. It only left me with confusion and questions. The language seems cryptic and sentences are convolved. I guess this is the book for Perl experts and not for someone who truly wants to learn the language. And I bet, its gonna create some confusions in an expert mind as well. To summarize, dont waste your money.
31 Hard to read
I am a foreigner, please bear my grammer.
I read all chapters of learning perl before I read this book. I know C and some C++ and I am engineer and not programmer but I program by myself sometimes. This book is still hard to read for me. However, if you take the time and pain to read it, it will give a much better insight than any other perl book I have read.
I really want the author to focus on one topic (not jumping around or even jumping ahead something couple chapters later. The examples are hard to read unless you know most perl 'in advance' (remember Perl is kind of 'magic', there is not much 'structure' like C or C++' and lot of implications make the examples hard to understand, especially the authors try to code the 'cool' or 'shorthand' way.) When I read it again second time, I can follow the book. When I read the first time, it was not easy (spent a lot of time to think what the author tries to say.
All the important concepts are there. Instead of 'paragraphs after paragraphs' to talk about the concept, the author can just give one or two examples to illustrate the concept. It will be far better to write hundred words to talk about 'a few concepts'.
We all have 'limited time.' I think if the author can make it easier to read, more people will buy this book. Anyway, it is a 'good book'. But it is 'not easy to read'.
If you read through this book, you will get a much better insight.
I strongly believe the author can make this book much easier to read. If he do so, he will reward with more audiences and more 'income'.
32 Not a good reference book
I find this to be a very frustrating and time-consuming book to use as a reference. The main complaint I have about this book is its astonishing lack of examples. No user wants to try to extract syntax from paragraphs of commentary. If you have the time and want to sit down and learn the "theory" behind Perl, then maybe this is a good book for you. Otherwise, look for a book with examples rather than expository.
33 A must have for every serious Perl programmer.
You want to know something about Perl? Larry Wall is among my list of 3 people that I will certainly listen to. Of course if you ask the three people I have in mind (Larry Wall, Damian Conway and Randall Schwartz) you will no doubt come up with three different answers.
That aside, this is the book for you if you are serious about programming in the language dubbed "The Duct Tape of the Internet."
34 Great as reference, terrible for learning
I will keep this book for reference, but will go find another one in order to learn. They take a 'bottom-up' approach and start with ALL the detail. So if you just want simple examples to start with, you are stuck. You must read for hours to figure out anything. Instead of starting with easy stuff and building up, they just jump right in with all the way cool tricky stuff. As a reference book, it will be excellent.
35 If you know Perl, and want to know more...
I am surprised that some of the reviews take this book to task for not being for beginners. It isn't for beginners; I would reccomend Learning Perl, 3rd edition (Randall Schwartz, et al) to those wishing to learn Perl.
As to it's fitness for larger projects, I am working on a large project with Perl. As it turns out, Perl is ideal for some projects (large or small) and not for others, which is characteristic of many languages and environments. Object Orientation does have it's value (we do use Perl in OO style). On the other hand OO isn't, contrary to the pursists, the I.T. panacea they might have us believe. It's one more tool in the box.
Those interested in OO in Perl would benefit from Object Oriented Perl by Damian Conway. The book begins with a wonderfully concise description of OO.
In short, this book is great for what it is intended for: Intermediate and Advanced Perl users. I use it as a reference on an almost daily basis.
36 Horrible Book
I own the 2nd Edition of this book. I am surprised by the number of good reviews I see here. Unless the 3rd edition is vastly improved, I cannot see how this book can be so highly regarded.
I have many years of programming experience, yet I find this book difficult to read. In fact this book will actually impede someone from learning Perl! Many computer subjects are harder, yet it is easier to learn those than to learn Perl from this book. The book is poorly organized. The author talks about this and that, rather than keeping focus, giving clear outlines and demonstrating with good examples in a methodical way. Too much detail is given in disoriented fashion before a reader gets to become familiar with a topic. At times something is mentioned that is not covered until much later.
There's no question the author is knowledgeable, but my time is valuable; it's just not worth it to have to read a sentence 3 times before comprehending it. A good book makes a difficult subject easy. A lousy book makes an easy subject seem hard. As a teaching tool this book doesn't cut it. Maybe this is why O'Reilly decided to publish another book on Perl.
37 Content good, presentation and organization poor.
I agree whole heartily with Jo Totland's September 29, 2002 review, and would add the following.
If you can stay in the book every day, consistently, until you get through the book, it's not too bad (although, the flow is lacking). However, if you get four or five chapters into the book, put it down for a week and try to come back to it, forget it.
It has also not been a very good reference for me.
If you're working with PERL full time, you should probably have it. If you use PERL occasionally, you might want to borrow it first to see if it fits your style.
38 The Camel
This book-authored by the CREATOR of Perl and two other leading Perl developers-is the best Perl book there is. It does sometimes assume you have a little programming knowledge, but not about Perl in general. Besides, if you are completely new to programming, I would recommend reading Learning Perl or Perl and CGI: Visual Quickstart Guide first.
This book covers every detail, nook and cranny of Perl, is well-written (despite what some reviews may say), is full of great humor (it's almost worth the money just for the jokes!), and in general will be the only book you will ever need to use for core Perl after you learn the language.
In short, if you are ever going to use Perl, buy this book.
39 Overrated...
Ok this is the book on Perl. Or so people say. I don't know what they are thinking, because the book is not organized enough to be usable as a reference, and it lacks the easy progression of a good tutorial. However, it is the standard reference on Perl, and if you are serious about learning it, you should read it from cover to cover, once, hopefully never to touch it again.
Perl is incredibly arcane, and carries a lot of mistakes from the past,. This book will explain each of them in detail. Read it, once, never to use those features again. There are CPAN modules to solve most problems with Perl, but this book won't tell you about them. It will, however, tell you why the exist. And it will give you an idea of how those CPAN modules work.
Yes, it is badly written, yes it is hard to follow the authors enthusiasm for his own mistakes, but if you really want to know, it's here you'll find it. Sadly, this book is actually needed. You are better of with it than without it. But don't expect it to be the inspirational read people tell you it is.
40 Perl from the horses's mouth or the Camel's mouth if you wil
Probably not the best book for beginners but the best book for those with some experience in programming in perl or other languages. Great sense of humor too.
41 Poorly written disappointment
You get the impression that Larry Wall thinks he's one clever author. But his writing style get tedious really quickly and is mostly a waste of paper. Well, I do like the regular expression section, but other than that, I would say skip this book. I recommend the Learning Perl along with the Perl Cookbook.
42 Wonderful and in-depth book on Perl
Hey, do you know C ??? The only book for C is "C programming Language by K&R", the same applies here. The only book for Perl is this very book. It has in-depth explanation of Perl. Say no further, this is the only bible on Perl.
43 a computer language book with humor, what else can I say ?
true, this book is not for everyone, if this is your first exposure to Perl go for another book, like Learning Perl, the so called Llama book, or if you're interested on programming server side web applications then almost any of the 100+ titles on web programming with perl/CGI will be fine. If you're just interested on getting your hands dirty righ away with Perl for writing a CGI script, then don't buy this book now or you we'll be complainig loudly like others have done here about how bad this book is, it's bad for their taste, that is.
You can even find some humorous paragraphs, geek humor if you want, but anyway how many programming books can you find like this one ?
Almost everything about Perl can be found on this book and you have a reference on the last pages about every Perl function, much more practical for me than online references.
I have used Perl successfully for programming general purpose scripts, network monitoring applications, XML processing backends and the all ever popular de rigeur CGI scripts, all with the knowledge gained for this book.
So if you want to use perl for more than CGI, please make room in your bookshelf ...
44 A terrible Perl book
I am a programmer and web developer, so I bought this book based on a million people's recommendation. After months of trying to learn ANYTHING from it, I finally got rid of it.
This book is great if all you care about is how a language works in theoretical terms. However, if your goal is to learn a language to DO THINGS WITH IT, which is what drives people to Perl in ther first place, this book is so impenetrable as to be completely useless. It joins the ranks of books written by the creators of a particular language and belong in the "inexplicable cult status" section of most geeks' libraries.
My main gripe is possibly that this book is completely mistitled. Had it been titled "The Guts of Perl", I would never have bought it and I would not be writing this review. As such, however, this is the last book that will teach you how to do anything with Perl. Try "Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days" and "Perl: The Complete Reference" -- those are the two essential Perl books to have to get started and carry you along for a while.
45 Does this need a review?
Just buy it, if you are a perl programmer.
46 Not for the weak of mind!
I bought this book because it was recommended to me for learning Perl. I have never used Perl before, and started reading from the beginning. It is well written and quite readable, but I started to get lost after 60 or so pages. (Note that I do have plenty of experience in other languages, but that was not really helpful to me in deciphering the terminology in this book.) It was getting into complicated stuff without really showing how to write simple test programs, which is what I really needed. In fact, it gives rather few code examples, and those that are given are usually no more than 3 lines, so the reader doesn't get a good idea of how to put together a whole program.
However, as I said, it is quite readable, and very informative. It may be better suited to someone who already knows how to program in Perl and wants to learn more. In summary, my recommendation:
Buy this book if you:
-are fanatical about Perl and need to know everything about it
-are very smart/experienced in programming, particularly with prior experience in Perl
-know how to code in Perl already but want a handy reference to the minute details in it
Do not buy this book if you:
-are not very good/experienced at programming
-only need to know the basics
-will only be using Perl for a short time
47 Good, but could be better
The book definitely is EVERYTHING you need to know about Perl. But that's as much of a weakness as it is a strength. Don't get me wrong, I think being comprehensive is a good thing. However, by being comprehensive, sometimes the "basics" get lost in the shuffle.
Also, I believe one of the authors must have a PHD in Linguistics. They go into painstaking detail to compare the perl programming language to the english language, which takes away from learning the programming language (the intent of the book). They also use very uncommon (large) words that aren't known to the majority of the target audience which also complicates learning.
Another criticism is they don't explore the windows piece of programming perl enough. I believe windows probably has 90% of the desktop OS market share so I would think they should include a little more info for that segment of the population.
One last criticism is that they introduce topics without explaining them. For instance, they use code for some "sample" programs and in that code is reserved words that haven't been explained yet which makes understanding the sample code very difficult.
I'm not saying it's a bad book, I'm just saying it has some areas it could definitely improve.
Have I found a better book? Not yet, but I'm still looking.
48 A vast improvement on the second edition
I'd classify my self as a intermediate Perl programmer. That said, I understand the need for good books that can help Perl newbies master the real meat of Perl programming. The second edition of programming Perl had failed miserably in this regard, especially on the related topics of referencing, packages, modules and OOP. From what I've read so far in 3rd edition of Programming Perl, the authors and editors have finally made some much-needed improvements in description and examples. Other topics have been amply expanded, which is good to see; It's about time that Programming Perl has become what it has always been billed as: the Perl Bible, i.e. the book you will refer to for the rest of your natural days as a perl programmer. Until this 3rd edition, that claim was misleading hype.
49 TMTOWTDI
TMTOWTDI-There's more than one way to do it, Perl's famous moto.
This book is a lean mean learning machine. It's not for perl beginners though, like I was when I bought it. I found I had to research every other new concept while reading until I came across another fantastic book by OReilly called 'Learning Perl' which answered all of my questions, and paved my way to understanding the perl bible (aka, Programming Perl).
It won't have you sitting at the edge of your seat waiting to turn the next page, but it will have your customers sitting in suspense on how you wrote such a [kicking] program that does so many things, all while being so fast.
The best thing about this book combined with Learning Perl, is if you don't like (or in my case don't understand) how they did an example it's a cakewalk to program it entirley different with no adverse effects. Obviously I'd have to try pretty hard to program something differently than Larry Wall and make it faster or just as fast, but that's not the point.
50 Excellent introduction and reference
I just started programming in Perl only 4 months or so ago. I had previously picked up some very CGI-oriented Perl books and these turned me off to the language. But _Programming Perl_ is wonderfully different, for a number of reasons:
First, it is about the language in general, not just about CGI programming. It has an excellent little introduction to the CGI:: module, but of course it also introduces you to hundreds of other useful CPAN modules.
Second, it isn't a "for dummies" book. You have to understand programs and files and loops. That said, it doesn't fall into the trap of teaching you how to translate C to Perl - it shows you the "easy" way of doing things (via hashes, OO, grep and map, etc.) without getting too caught up in the things that make other programming languages such an amazing sink of time.
Third, it teaches the idioms of Perl programming. Follow the idioms, and you'll generate readable and maintainable code.
It's not the only Perl book I own - I can also recommend Christiansen's _Perl Cookbook_ and Conway's _Object-Oriented Perl_ - but it is far and away the one I refer to the most.
51 Too Much Garbage, Not Enough Perl
Here's a quick summary of my opinion: I think the third edition is a TERRIBLE book for people who already know how to program, and want to come up to speed on Perl. And if your not familiar with unix systems, you SURE should look elsewhere, cuz you'll get no help from this book.
In the intro to the third edition, the authors note that they've added "more tutorial information for non-programmers."
Well, let me tell you: Between all this new tutorial information (comparing Perl to English) and the author's "funny" comments in parentheses, it's hard to follow the substance of this book.
I've been programming for years. I can apprecaite a funny programming book - as long as it's well written. Humor in a such a book can help to keep the reader engaged in a dry topic. But THIS book!? Man! Every other paragraph has three "funny" interjections. It gets tiring.
MUCH worse is the "tutorial information" for those who might be new to programming. The book reads like somebody went through the text, interjecting explanations anywhere they thought a programming neophyte might not understand something. It's really hard for an experienced developer to read past this stuff.
Taken all together, you get good material interspersed with too many pseudo-jokes and too much useless quasi-turtorial information. It's hard to follow. It's hard to dig out anything useful.
Another really enormous failing of this book is its near total assumption that readers have unix backgrounds. Oh, there are some condescending references to non-unix platforms ("welcome to OUR world" is one). But many things are explained as being "similar to shell scripting". So, while the authors assumes that the reader might not know what an array is (arrgh) they assume you know what DBM is, or what name globbing is, or whatever. This book is VERY unhelpful to Windows programmers.
To hear other people talk about this book, you'd think it was handed down to the development community on Mt. Sinai etched on stone tablets. Well, that MAY have been true of the second edition. But this edition... Yuck! Absolutely HIDEOUS.
52 learn perl easily
perl seems to be a very hard program at first, but you can learn it easily by reading this book... perl is a powerful program which is supported by all operating systems and can be also used for web developement and web programming
53 If you only buy one Perl book, buy this one.
This is an excellent book for those who already know another programming language and want to learn Perl. It assumes a certain familiarity with basic programming concepts and data structures, but doesn't assume you know anything at all about Perl itself.
The bulk of the book (and this is quite a bulky book indeed) is a detailed tour of the language that doesn't shy away from digging into the nitty-gritty of how things work at a low level. Don't let that intimidate you, though; after the first couple of chapters I was already writing successful Perl programs, making heavy use of the well-organized reference material in the back of the book.
The reference material is no-nonsense, but the other chapters have a lighthearted, irreverent tone that reminds me a lot of the old AppleSoft BASIC manuals. Some people may not like this, but I found it helpful because it made the material less dry and more enjoyable to read. The chapter on pattern matching is especially good; I never felt I really *understood* regular expressions until I read it.
I do have a few complaints; while the index is good, the somewhat wordy style of the non-reference chapters can make information a bit hard to find. There are some things that just aren't covered in the reference section, like the pattern matching character classes, that you can end up hunting for in other chapters.
54 The Bible
I wouldn't say this is simple the Perl bible, but the Bible itself! I mean, it only covers Perl, but it should be used as an example for all books.
It covers every nook and cranny of perl, from regular expressions, to object-oriented perl, to obscure overloading procedures. It even has a (brief) section on Perl Poetry.
Not to mention, Larry Wall's writing style is that of a true genius. It's flowing and easy to read, and f**king hilarious! If you're a programmer but not interested in perl, look at a friend's copy of this book just for the wonderfully funny footnotes.
I recommend this for a programmer with at least one language of background. That or experience with BASIC (seeing as how I said 'language'). Even if you don't have interest in Perl, start reading, and I assure you, you will.
55 ! Concise && ( not very good with the examples)
If you want to look through murky waters to find a pearl then look no further.
Like other reviewers I don't understand the concept of dilluding the content with wordless verbiage. A great book for me contains the following: tell me the important parts about the subject matter, give me concrete examples, show me some cool stuff, and please do it as quick as possible. I somehow think that the author had his mind on something else when he put this book together, longer/thicker doesn't make a better book.
Don't get me wrong there is plenty of usefull information hidden within the passages.
56 Don't Believe the (Sp|C)urious Negative Reviews
If you're like me, and you're shopping for a book, you immediately start reading the negative reviews and work upwards. So I started reading the reviews and read through them all, bought the book despite the many negative, and frankly, snippish comments made by many reviewers and decided that I need to respond.
Many say that the examples are convoluted, or that he focuses on obscure language references. One says the book starts quickly with a discussion of the splice function. The first mention of splice is on page 355, which I certainly don't define as 'quickly'....
Others say that there are no examples, or they are not explained clearly, but there's a short sample program right on page 18, and then 4 pages are devoted to analyzing the program and how it works. Further review through the book shows many small examples, especially in the sections that outline the core functions of Perl, and the core modules of Perl.
Others come here and criticize Perl the language, and use this as a platform for their own advocacy of other languages. This is just silly. If you're interested in Perl, or you've been using Perl and you want to know more, buy this book. In the universe of computer programming, every language choice you make is controversial, and subject to debate, and just because some reviewers do not like Perl the language, it does not mitigate the quality of this book.
That all being said, and debunking the frankly lousy reviews, I'll caution that this is NOT for beginning programmers, or people with limited technical knowledge. O'Reilly knows this, and anyone who has read this book should know this too. There is a book called 'Beginning Perl', also from O'Reilly, and written by one of the other top minds in Perl. It is easy to follow, provides many concrete examples and is where a beginning programer should begin. If you have a technical background, you will probably be able to start with this book, though Learning Perl is still worth reading.
What this book provides is not only an exhaustive guide to the language of Perl, and it's abilities, but also insight into it's design, the decisions of the creator of the language (Larry Wall, the main author of the book created Perl), and the major philosophy behind Perl.
This is a valuable reference and worth having.
This is the book that I turn to when I have Perl questions.
And this book is worth every penny I spent to get it.
57 This book will be your guide
I purchased this book last year. I started reading it and quickly realized it's not a tutorial, but a reference. If you do not know anything about perl, don't start here. Buy Learning Perl instead. Once you finish Learning Perl, and are getting better at perl, even using what Larry Wall call's "baby talk", then I would recommend getting Programming Perl. This book is very in-depth regarding everything perl has to offer, and then some. So if you are new to perl, or to programming, get a tutorial first, then dive into programming perl.
58 An indespensible book for die-hard perl programmers
If you are a programmer, with an extensive background in programming theory, and a passion for Perl, this book is for you. This book, written by the creator of Perl, contains more details about Perl than one could possibly find in any other book. This book doens't hold back in discussing perl topics, but rather it discusses them inside and out without excluding anything. For someone who has a thorough foundation in Perl, this is definitely the next step in exploring Perl.
If you are a casual programmer though, I must caution you that this book is pretty intense reading. I found it helps to read this book while reading the "Perl Cookbook". The chapters for each book correlate to each other. This book explains how everything works, while the Cookbook shows you how to apply these concepts in real life situations.
One complaint I had about this book were the unclear examples. Other books by O'Reilly such as "Learning Perl" and "Perl Cookbook" will label each line of code in their examples so that there is no ambiguity. However the example scripts in this book are sparsely labled, so it is not always clear what the author's intent is.
However, if you feel up to the challenge, I would definitely recommend this book. After reading this book, your understanding of Perl will improve dramatically. In addition, the last few chapters will provide a very useful reference regarding Perl's many modules, functions and such. For serious programmers, you will thank yourself for buying this book.
59 excellent !!!!!!!!!!
I just get my hands on PERL a year ago by taking a training class by SUN (which is also super good!). I am using PERL for some admin works for SUN servers for both system and database. Then I bought this Camel book. I love it-- it is thorough, fun to read, and detailed. In my opinion, it is NOT just for expereinced programmers, since I am no programmer at all. It does take some patience to get the whole picture though. But Larry warned this on page.47 that if you want to get the whole picture first, you should read the book backward....
In summary, go get the book and you won't regret!
60 A Ground Up Approach
When I began reading this book I had intermediate skills in several high and low level languages, but absolutely no knowledge of Perl. IMHO when considering which book (or books) to purchase when learning a new language, you must consider how you want to learn that language. If you tend to get impatient and need to get coding right away, then this book probably isn't for you as it takes a ground up approach. As you would in a chemistry class, you'll start from an atomic level and work slowly up to useful, molecule-level code. The third edition is radically different than the second: and after browsing through several other introduction-to-Perl type books, this is by far my pick for the Perl newbie. The immense reference section will remain useful even after you move far beyond this book.
61 Great Perl reference
Very thorough. Discusses all the features of Perl, including the philosophy that motivated developers of the language. Is quite easy to read, especially if you've had some exposure to programming languages. Excellent desk reference.
62 Great Reference
This book is an exceptional reference, with an easy to use index, and I find the function reference toward the back extremely useful when I need a quick refresh on proper syntac.
63 This is a great book.
In spite of my current affinity for ColdFusion, I must say that Perl was my first love. This book was one of the first REAL programming books I read. O'Reilly has a great fix on Perl, and spared no expense in developing its library of Perl resources. This book is a great Perl desk reference that will get you out of most Perl jams.
64 Wish I could buy the third edition
Well, what can I say that hasn't already been said about this book. Sure it is slightly convoluted in comparison to other programming classics (K&R, and know PERL is not a simpler language), but really it is the best book for helping gain the PERL mindset. I only own the second edition but I have worked with the 3rd edition while I was a TA in a CGI programming class. Basically after you have learned enough PERL to make it through Learning PERL then this book will answer all of your language questions.
65 Not for Beginers
I found the book to all but useless, the index is terrible examples are limiting, and there is little expansion of key concepts. I found most of what I needed from searching perl websites.
66 A real Perl bible
It has been a long time ago when I started to experiment with Perl scripts and my highest handicap was that I had had no good book to learn Perl. Then I discovered Programming Perl in my local bookstore, bought it and learnt all main Perl features and tricks within a week!
Believe it or not, it is true story. If you want to start writing well-programmed and robust Perl scripts or applications, this book is the greatest option to start with. It slowely and understandably introduces you into Perl itself, each feature and method is closely described and everything is explained by lots of examples which highlight how it is easy to write any routine in Perl by several lines instead of long and hard-to-understand code in some other languages. Your programs will be no longer amateur and suffering low performance when you learn, for example, how to effectively use $_ variable or file handler tricks. I could write several pages describing a huge amount of Perl programming technologies covered in this book.
Although I am an experienced Perl programmer now, I still open Programming Perl from time to time, just to recall how to handle some script features which are hard to remember.
67 Very Good Book
I have used this book to learn Perl, and I was very satisfied with it.
Although it may be that it describes things not it the shortest way possible, it is actually fun to read; and one recognizes that the Author loves and knows his language.
I had some programming background in C/C++/JAVA when I bought this book, and I _don't_ think it's a good book for beginners. (on the other hand, I don't think that PERL is a good language for someone who wants to learn programming :) )
All in all I have considered the money very well spent - if one wants to really _know_ PERL I think there's no way around this book.
68 TERRIBLE BOOK
I think the real reason Larry Wall wrote this book was just to brag about his baby creation. 80-90% of this book is just Larry going on and on about how Perl is the greatest language ever because it loosely models human languages. The real content of this book is so watered down it's as if O'Reilly told Wall, "Sorry, 200 pages is too short, try to go for 1000 so we can sell the book for [price] rather than $30."
Larry should take a note from Dennis Ritchie(the creator of C) and his book "The C Programming Language". Ritchie DOESN'T go on and on about how he's the greatest genius in the world and how C is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Ritchie's book is 250 pages and documents EVERY TINY DETAIL of the C language. It takes Larry 1000 pages to do the same for Perl, a MUCH simpler language. That's just sad.
69 For Serious Perl Programmer
This is not a book to learn Perl from unless you have a solid programming background, even though Perl is supposed to be usable by anyone. I found it a challenging read. In part, it was because the language is so radically different from C++/C/Java/etc. The rules of the language are very flexible, kinda making Perl a "There's Too Many Ways To Do It" language. I imagine debugging someone else's Perl code must be difficult. If you are solid with skills such as c/c++/UNIX shell scripting/XSL/Javascript(Expressions), you will benefit from this book. If not, you will probably get frustrated, and should probably start with an easier "Intro" type Perl book. In school I was never a big fan of Lisp/Scheme, but I respected them. Same goes for Perl. Its an awesome "glue" language that I now feel comfortable using. Although there are reams of information and examples (THANKFULLY!) in this book, the author often shows code that is not explained until later in the book. I had to read ahead far more often than I wanted. I am a big fan of buying books by the authors of technologies, because they expose most everything - simple to advanced++ - I need to know as a professional. This book falls into this category. One final note, the author has a good sense of humor, which - in an over 1000 page tome - does help make potentially drab technical praddle easier to digest!
70 not for beginners
This is a great book on Perl, probably the best, but it is DEFINETELY not for people just starting out. This is an extremely in-depth and convoluted book and will work best for people who have at least some programming experience and know something of Perl. If you want a good book to start out with, I recommend Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz (another O'Reilly book, of course). Happy reading. :)
71 A masterpiece
Outdated now, of course, with the 3rd edition long out, and Perl 6 on the way. Nevertheless absolutely essential in its time.
72 The Perl bible, plain and simple
I regard this book as the Perl equivalent of Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language. Simply put, it is the bible for the language: long, thorough, authoratative, and indulging in a fair amount of proselytizing. (The preaching becomes almost amusing when it tries to portray Perl's implementation of OOP as anything but ugly.) If nothing else, the authors' enthusiasm for the language shines through. Along with a somewhat witty writing style, it makes for good reading.
I have to disagree with those warning Perl newbies away from this book. I must admit that I did read Learning Perl first, as a result of all these cautionary tales. However, I felt that I learning nothing useful from the Llama, and I didn't even write my first Perl program until I began the Camel. Reading Programming Perl was very satisfying in that it portrayed the language in a no-nonsense manner that allowed me at last to see all that Learning Perl tried so hard to hide. Certainly, I don't recommend Programming Perl to those who are programming for the first time. However, experienced C programmers and computer scientists will probably pick up Perl pretty readily from this book. If nothing else, at least try Programming Perl first. You'll certainly need it eventually, since Learning Perl is not sufficient for anything but the most surface understanding of how to use the language. (The authors at least address the reader as somebody who knows nothing about Perl.)
The bottom line: if you're a programmer, you should have this book. Perl is just too useful a language not to know.
73 A good reference, but not for standalone usage
Don't listen to those people that tell you that this is how you should start learning perl. After the first 20 pages I was extremely confused, mainly because of the discussion of classes in the very first chapter. The main problem I found with this book was that every paragraph seems to bombard you with a new subject.
It's good, though, if you're the kind that focuses intensely on your reading and absorbs every, single word; but if you're like the rest of us, you'll need something easier to start out with. It's certainly a good reference, although I'd recommend the Perl Cookbook if that's all you need...
For beginners, Perl from the Ground Up by Michael McMillan or Learning Perl (a bit faster paced) by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix are the better of the bunch, but if you have a moderate programming background, this book's fine :)
74 Senseless book
I bought this book, and believe me, it's a waste of money!!! I thought the book was great, but it has no sense at all. It has a total of 0 examples, it's about 1,000 pages and each command is learned separately, which has no sense at all. You cannot learn from this book, i assure you guys!!!.
75 Well-written, but tries too hard to disguise Perl's flaws
To be very short about it: Perl is a great language for some things (small scripts), but a bad language for other things (systems programming). In this book, Larry Wall tries very hard to convince you that Perl is the programming language for everyone -- that it does everything. It doesn't.
If you read this book with the knowledge that Perl is Larry Wall's baby, you won't be fooled into thinking it's the uber-language. In particular, Wall's description of how Perl does OOP is laughable; he lambastes other languages for taking a paranoid view of data-hiding, which is a smokescreen so that you won't realize how badly Perl does OOP.
It's best to read this book if you're in the middle of a programming project involving Perl. That way you'll KNOW what it does well and what it does badly. It does regular expressions exceedingly well. Its lack of data typing slows down the programmer. Larry Wall will not tell you these things; he will attack C and C++ for their deficits, but will carefully ignore Perl's.
So in short, it teaches Perl very well, but the fact that it lies to the reader at a fundamental level makes me remove one star. When Larry puts out an honest fourth edition, the fifth star will return.
76 Overall, it's a disappointment
Being a software engineer for 10 years, I have read many programming books. This book is surprisingly verbose and critical information is scattered all over the place. You need to read it multiple times just to gather the information from many different places. A very exhausting and frustrating exercise. Pages and pages are spent/wasted on things that are remotely related to Perl at best.
There is no doubt that the authors know Perl inside out but they really overkill when they try to make the reading easy for the beginners. They end up making it more confusing instead. You will encounter many instances where the authors start to explain certain things and suddenly stop and conclude it with "more on that later."
Contrasting it with good books that are to-the-point and give very revealing examples for illustration, this book is a disappointment.
I have talked to a few people who also own this book. They all have the same feelings. It just doesn't match the high rating I see in the reviews.
77 Gonzo Learning
This book almost immediately moves to the full essence of Perl programming. Thereby violating all rules of "good writing." The start is VERY difficult to understand. But I stuck to it and read it over and over again, carefully. When I finally understood the first chapter, I understood Perl. Learning the rest was mostly details. So this "immersion" style worked, at least for me. The later editions do not begin this way, so my review applies only to the first edition.
78 Step down from Leaning Perl 2nd edition
This book is good neither for learning nor for reference while Learning Perl 2nd edition was well suitable for both. Too many words, too little sense which, on top of that, is well hidden. Unless you want to support authors financially, don't buy it.
79 Needs a hard cover
This will be my third copy of this great book. I use it so much I wear them out. Would love to see a hard cover version.
80 Reference but NOT the bok to discover PERL
One of my friend give me this book because I need to make small scripts in PERL. I was absolutely not familiar with PERL and I have sometimes lots of difficulties to understand the examples given. They are not well commented. I often wonder "What is the meaning of this ... hum" You can buy this book if you want a reference, you shouldn't if you are searching something to begin. I am here to order something another book... and will upadte this comment later
81 Who said ....
The book is definetely written for those who at least have some (or maybe a little more than just "some") programming background, and willing to learn Perl from the author of the language.
I read the first edition of the book, which was about 200 pages, or something in that range, which filled my mind with nothing but questions. Current edition, however, could answer to all of those questions (well, almost). Of course, to make it answer them I had to re-read the book four times. But none of the books I currently own (and I own quite a few) could've taken me to the innards of the language so deep no matter how many times I had read them. So the book is of value.
The Camel book, especially, does a great job on Regular Expressions and pattern matching. If you want to learn RegEx of perl in very details, you definitely need listen to the author of Perl. "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Jeffrey Friedl is also a good choise, but doesn't include the latest updates.
Formats aren't covered very well though. So you might consider "The Lama book" for that ("Learning Perl"). Still, none of the books can tell you about the innards of the Perl in so much detail overall than "Programming Perl".
OOP is also toched upon in the book. Since purpose of the author is not to preach you OO lingo (but plain Perl), you'll treat that part just as an intorduction to OOP and consider "Object Oriented perl" by Damian Convey as the next text book.
I found chpater 14, "Tied variables" very helpfull though. It might remind you of DBM/Berkley DB, through the syntax
tie my %db, 'AnyDBM_File', 'my_file', O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0664;
but unfortunately it's not about DBM at all. It is about how the "tie" function works, and teaches you how to create your own classes for implementing with "tie". After that chapter, I even had to update some of my classes and saved lots of time for their updates.
"Compiling", chapter 18 ,is a must read chapter for those who "live & breath" with Perl (like me, may be ?).
I don't want you to buy the book unless you have a good understanding of Programming or/and have knowledge of some programming languages. Otherwise, it won't help at all.
If your purpose is just to get started with Web applications, go for "CGI progamming 101" by Jacqueline Hamilton. It is a good start. But if you want to go even deeper, "Learning Perl" and "Perl Coookbook" is the next choise. Keep the "The Camel" book as the next (but definitely, not the last).
82 Good Reference, but hard to read.
First of all, most of this material is available for free on perl.com, which makes it seem a little overpriced. Second this is more of a reference than a book you can actually read. Learning Perl is excellent-- get that first.
83 big book, lots of material, but a tough read
I'm not all that enamored with this book. I have many years of programming experience in various languages, and even with that background this book is difficult to follow. The author keeps making idiotic comparisons between "natural, spoken language" and PERL syntax. To me that just takes up space and isn't useful at all. Then when he discusses important concepts which differ from other languages (e.g. the way PERL handles variables), I find his explanations difficult to follow.
Surely there must be better books than this!
84 This is the Meat and Potatoes of Perl
I really enjoyed this book. I have a limited knowledge of Perl, yet Larry Wall has a way of describing the language that is informative and instructional without trying to be cute or overly simplistic. I found that everything in this book was useful and very informative. This book explains how to use and program such things as loop statements, passing references in subroutines, as well as a section on common practices showing common goofs of novices as well as other beneficial information to make your scripts better.
If you are looking for a book that will give you more of the meat and potatoes of Perl, instead of leading you by the hand, this book is what you want.
85 Programming the Perl Way . . .
I was recently asked by a peer (a senior software engineer more at home with Java than Perl) my opinion of this book. After writing it I thought it suitable enough for framing:
"Hmm. Learning Perl and Programming Perl 3e both have roughtly the same information. However, the presentation in Learning Perl is a little more clear on some topics--and is more suitable for less experienced programmers. My recommendation is that you shy away from Learning Perl unless you find that Programming Perl 3e does not fulfill all your basic Perl needs."
This is to say that if you are reasonably technical and able to pick up on programming, Programming Perl is more suitable than Learning Perl. I have found both invaluable in my career, but looking back I realized that Programming Perl has been most helpful.
The authors of this book are the names in Perl. They are intimately familiar with the material and have had years of experience in finding the best way to present the material. I also suggest the Perl Cookbook, but it has enough recommendations on its own.
86 Programmin
I was recently asked by a peer (a senior software engineer more at home with Java than Perl) my opinion of this book. After writing it I thought it suitable enough for framing:
"Hmm. Learning Perl and Programming Perl 3e both have roughtly the same information. However, the presentation in Learning Perl is a little more clear on some topics--and is more suitable for less experienced programmers. My recommendation is that you shy away from Learning Perl unless you find that Programming Perl 3e does not fulfill all your basic Perl needs."
This is to say that if you are reasonably technical and able to pick up on programming, Programming Perl is more suitable than Learning Perl. I have found both invaluable in my career, but looking back I realized that Programming Perl has been most helpful.
The authors of this book are the names in Perl. They are intimately familiar with the material and have had years of experience in finding the best way to present the material. I also suggest the Perl Cookbook, but it has enough recommendations on its own.
87 Don't buy this book
This is a book that quickly starts out with a convoluted discussion of the "splice" function, comparing its workings with those of pop, shift, unshift, etc. The author then tells us after all the agony of trying to follow him to forget it -- you'll never use it. The examples fail badly because he's never bothered to explain pop, shift, or any of the other material he slings at us. And so it goes, in this book about a frightfully haphazard language written by the same mind that created the language. Don't buy this book. You'd be better off trying to re-read your college physics text while drunk. There are some excellent WWW tutorials; I ended up relying on them.
88 A book no Perl programmer should be without
I purchased this book to be used as a good solid reference guide, and I haven't been disappointed in the least. This book is well written and organized, and is a definite MUST HAVE by anyone who uses the Perl programming language. In the first week of use, I found myself constantly drawn to this book to find answers, which it gave me without much looking.
89 THE perl book
There is no other perl book, there is only.. "The Camel Book". When us programmers need to code in perl, the first and usually last book we need to grab is the camel book.
It has excellent examples, great descriptions, and a very easy to navigate index. I've used this same book for 4 years now and still it's the best reference material in my collection. I'd recommend it to anyone who uses perl or plans to in the future.
90 Programming Perl is exhaustive in detail
Programing Perl is good book. Of course, it assumes that you already have a good knowledge of perl and it is an excellent reference. Each time I read a chapter, I learn a bit more about the "why" & "how" perl works.
I would not recommend this book for a perl newbie UNLESS it was to be used a reference only AND as a compliment to the famous "Learning Perl" book. The first time I read the first edition of this book (programming perl), I nearly cried because I was bombarded with so much detail that it confused and baffled me and I nearly never picked up perl. However, after reading the "learning Perl" first, and then coming back to this book, I appreciated it soooo much more and loved the detail that had initially confused & frustrated me.
I still have the first edition of the book and in comparing it the third edition (I have never bought or read the 2nd edition), I would say that the third edition is generally an improvement.
I miss Randal Schwartz humorous style that made reading the first editon fun. Tom & Jon's style is different and they immediately drill down to the facts in a no-nonsense method that gives you a much better understanding of perl. If you have a background in programming "c", you will appreciated the details that they spill accross the page. I think I have improved my "c" programming skills just from reading their analysis.
I would recommend this book to any harden perl coder who wants to take the time to study it throughly (it is not light reading unless you are already a perl genuis). However, to someone learning perl for the first time, the Llama book is a better place to start.
91 The Definitive Perl Book Just Gets Better
If anyone claims to be a Perl programmer, but doesn't own a copy of the Camel book, then they aren't a _real_ Perl programmer.
This is the definitive Perl book, written by the people who are at the heart of the group who develop the language. And as a bonus, not only do they know how to design a great programming language, they also know how to write a great book to explain how to use that programming language.
This third edition adds a huge number of pages to cover new Perl features that were added since the last edition, but it also reorganises the information into a far more logical layout.
If you program Perl then you need this book.
92 Reference book, nothing more.
As already stated by the other reviewers, this book is not a must-read. It's nothing more than a reference book. Don't learn Perl with this book, nor try to find too advanced features. Learn Perl with "Learning Perl" which is really a must-read for any beginner, even if it requires some light programming background... Most Perl documentation is on the web and books like the "Perl Cookbook" are on-line. Save your money if you have an easy access to the web ... .
If you really like Perl (like me) then you should consider "Mastering Algorithms with Perl" which is full of useful tricks for improving the efficiency of your Perl code.
93 Be Brainy Buy this Book and Become a Perl Virtuoso
This book of course is for the programming novice as much of an anathema as the cross is for Dracula. But any scientist --be it a computer scientist, physicist, chemist, geneticist, mathematician, linguist--will find this book a rewarding purchase. Tons of Perl grammar including a smashing nut-shell like reference are spicing up the book into a culinaric Programmers $_=fea|s|t!
94 Perl Bible
The guys on the newsgroups & mailing list are right. This book is Perl Bible. But if you are absolutely new to Perl, get the llama book first. This book is just to the point, no code rewrite for each section like Wrox, or Sams book. It just contains the code that has to do with the topic. The regular expression (which is the best part of Perl) is nicely explained in around 180 pages. And with all those Larry's jokes, I bet you won't fall asleep while reading this book :)
95 Larry subordinated by Redmond?
The holy of holies. Larry has created the most powerful and fun scripting language this side of the Crab Nebula.
More fun than a barrel of Baby Kwatos.
Too bad Larry appears to have sold out - gone on the ActiveState payroll. Larry is now indirectly employed by the Evil Empire Itself - Microshaft!
You cant see it, but right now I am smashing my face against the keyboard. I cant stop. Each time I raise my head off the keyboard, strings of blood and mucous fly off my ruined face in looping strands.
Is nothing sacred?
96 Step 3 in learning Perl (for CGI)
Why step 3? Step 1, Learning Perl; Step 2, CGI programming with Perl; and this is three. A perfect book for explaining the how and why of what you've learned along the way, yet too deep for the very beginner. I read the chapter on regular expressions first, and now my regexps are much cleaner and more powerful. Then I went to chapter one and read the rest of the book to the end. You can program just fine without this book, but you'll be working too hard. I've cut my programs down in size, while making them much more readable (and faster too!). So do yourself a favor and buy this mug. You'll be glad you did. It's such a wealth of knowledge, and it rubs off on you.
97 Really wonderful
Comprehensive and extremely helpful, and lively to boot. Highly recommended.
98 Which came first the Llama or the Camel
Well in my case the Llama (Learning Perl). I came into Perl only by necessity. I am not a programmer by trade, I am a web designer. When CGI scripts were the new darlings of the Internet I knew I had to get involved. Everywhere I turned people said the way to go was Perl, so I bit the bullet and bought the books. I was lucky enough to have someone suggest to try the llama before the camel, and that worked out well.
I just got the new edition and so far I have not been disappointed. Larry Wall has a way of describing the language that is informative and instructional without trying to be cutesy or overly simplistic.
Basically, the classic got a great face lift.
99 THE Perl book (but tricky, sometimes)
Finally we have the third edition of this famous Perl book. At the time of the Perl 4 book, there was nearly no alternative. Now we are flooded by Perl books and many are great. Nevertheless, this one remains the "standard" Perl guide from the master himself. They don't comment on why Randal Schwartz left the authoring team and has been replaced by Jon Orwant. The book has now over 1000 pages and is printed on good quality paper. The organization of the chapters is much better. Since Perl can do so many things, one book is still not enough to cover each topic extensively enough. I wished some more explanations about recursive regular expressions, for instance. But on the other hand they know this and therefore recommend the online documentation (perldoc ...). Some examles in the book are somewhat tricky, so that one has to use the brains. Whether this is good or bad must be judged individually. The parts and chapters are now as follows:
Part I: Overview. 1.) An Overview of Perl, Part II: The Gory Details, 2.) Bits and Pieces, 3.) Uniray and binary operators, 4.) Statements and Declarations, 5.) Pattern Matching, 6.) Subroutines, 7.) Formats, 8.) References, 9.) Data Structures, 10.) Packages, 11.) Modules, 12.) Objects, 13.) Overloading, 14.) Tied Variables, Part III: Perl as Technology, 15.) Unicode, 16.) Interprocess Communication, 17.) Threads, 18.) Compiling, 19.) The Command-Line Interface, 20.) The Perl Debugger, 21.) Internals and Externals, Part IV: Perl as Culture, 22.) CPAN, 23.) Security 24.) Common Practices, 25.) Portable Perl, 26.) Plaon Old Documentation, 27.) Perl Culture, Part V: Reference Manual, 28.) Special Names, 29. Functions, 30.) The Standard Perl Library, 31.) Pragmatic Modules, 32.) Standard Modules, 33.) Diagnostic Messages.
100 Much Improved Third Edition
Whilst the second edition was a good book, it remained a bit stodgy, and didn't explain itself well in places.
None of this applies to the third edition. This book is so essential, I can actually see it outstripping the also excellent Learning Perl.
