Product Description
Perl is a powerful interpreted programming language thathas matured steadily since it first appeared in 1988.The first edition of this book, Programming Perl, hit the shelves in 1990, and was quickly adopted as theundisputed Bible of the language. Since then, Perlhas grown with the times, and so has this book.Programming Perl provides a unique introduction to thePerl language and its culture, as you might expect onlyfrom its authors. This third edition of the book has beenexpanded to cover version 5.6 of Perl. New topics includethreading, the compiler, Unicode, and other features thathave been added or improved since the previous edition.Amazon.com Review
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 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (122)

still a gem
I have owned this book for almost ten years.I haven't been using Perl much for the last few years, but I have recently been inspired to use it for a couple of projects.I pulled out my old Camel to give myself a refresher...I had forgotten what a great book this is.It is a surprisingly enjoyable read, and presents the information in a very understandable way.Anyone who does anything with Perl, or administers a system with Perl on it, should do themselves a favor and get this book.I wish I had a book of this quality for every language I use.

Your Even-Numbered Perl Book?
This is THE Perl book, but unless your style of learning is very different from mine, I wouldn't recommend it as your FIRST Perl book. For that, try Learning Perl.

But after you've spent some time writing simple Perl scripts, this is an excellent choice for your SECOND Perl book. Don't be alarmed if you don't understand everything; this can also be your fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth Perl book. As your experience grows, this is the book you'll keep coming back to -- and not just for the reference material. You'll learn more each time you read it, but only the parts you're ready for NOW will stick with you.

Challenging and rewarding.

Great book, desperately needs updated
This book covers Perl in great detail. It's extremely useful, almost mandatory, for any Perl programmer. However, it is also out of date. It covers Perl 5.6. We are now on Perl 5.12. A lot has been added to the language since this book was released. In addition, a number of topics in the remaining O'Reilly Perl books, such as best practices, should be rolled back into this book.

Excellent book, a true classic
This is an excellent book and not just the best book to learn Perl with but also a true showpiece of technical writing. This takes a slightly unconventional approach compared to other Perl books you may find and some may find that it focuses on obscure language features a tad too much.

But all that is more than made up for in the way it covers the Perl philosophy, culture and it's overall style and tone. It is not often that you find yourself laughing out loud while reading a programming language book.

Highly recommended.

Good book if you can get past the language.
Make no mistake about it, this is the Best book to learn to Program Perl. It teaches you the Language in the best manner and teaches you what Perl iswhich is - There is more than one way to do it.

But the problem is the writing which is a bit boring and confusing.

It will take some effort on your part but once you ignore that it is a Great Book No doubt about it.

... Read more

Product Description
The Classic Guide to Solving Real-World Problems with Perl—Now Fully Updated for Today’s Best Idioms!

Customer Reviews (5)

Worth having, no matter how expecienced you are
Having purchased the first edition many years ago, I've found it probably the most useful Perl book I ever had - one of those that Internet somehow couldn't manage to replace. It showed how to think in Perl, often tackling problems in ways not possible in other languages. This book is an excellent sequel that I'd consider a must-have for any Perl developer. I routinely check almost every Perl book that comes out, and this is probably one in a dozen I've seen lately that could teach me something about the language itself. There couldn't be a better indication that Perl is alive and kicking.

Wow! Awesome!
I have the first edition and have referenced it often in my journey working with Perl.This new edition is totally awesome! It really rocks!The comments that it has new material is true and it is great.But what really impresses me and makes this, in my opinion, a "must have" in your Perl library is that the original material has been so well recrafted...subtly and not with a lot of glitz...but ever so wonderfully.I've now read iti from cover to cover twice...it was a delight.And I've trully learned an unbelievable amount of things that never made sense to me in the past.Thumbs up...TWO thumbs up!

New coverage here includes expanded material spanning over a decade of Perl development
The second updated edition of Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl joins offers in the 'Effective Software Development' series, updating a classic Perl programmer's guide to nearly twice the size of the first edition. New coverage here includes expanded material spanning over a decade of Perl development, and eight now chapters on databases, distributions, files, and more.

Great material written by people who understand Perl
Effective Perl Programming packs a lot of useful information into a slim and manageable volume.There is no "filler" material in the book, which assumes you are already familiar with Perl. I have developed Perl software for more than fifteen years, and here are the aspects of Effective Perl Programming which struck me particularly:

The book doesn't cover what has already been covered elsewhere, so the material is all fresh and the space is used to investigate topics in reasonable detail.

The focus on idiomatic Perl - the authors say: "Although Perl's motto may be "There's More Than One Way To Do It," the corollary is, "But Most of Them Are Wrong," or "Some Ways Are Better Than Others."" The book illustrates how to write idiomatic Perl from the choice of language construct through to testing code and using CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive) effectively.

The authors demonstrate a deep understanding of Perl, and have clearly honed their examples and explanations.Well explained areas include: list vs. array, context, local vs. my, Unicode and utf8 handling, and which language constructs are appropriate where.Their experience with Perl in the real world shows in the explanations.

The writing and examples are clear and concise. The book's web site has an errata section which is kept up to date so I could mark up the known errors.

Effective Perl Programming revealed some of the features of recent Perl and new modules which I hadn't noticed or had time to internalize. Sometimes it is time to unlearn old habits and get up to date!

The authors have clearly carefully selected which material to cover, and covered it well. Part of writing idiomatic Perl is to improve the way I think of writing in Perl, and the topics selected by the authors cover about 90% of the things I need to do in my software development using Perl.

The book uses colour in the code examples to highlight the important bits. The quality of the book as a physical artifact seemed better than most "mass market" technical books I buy these days.

The time I spent reading the book has already been handsomely rewarded. All in all the book is well written, accurate, and a delight to read.The authors know their stuff and provide pointers to resources which cover other aspects of Perl well.

Packed Full of "Effective" Information
I don't own the first edition, so I can't compare the two editions.I did read a review of the 1st edition that talked about how densely populated it was for a small book, well that certainly is the case for the 2nd edition.With 12 years of Perl growth since the 1st edition, there is a lot more density added to the book.It is not, as the authors state, the definitive guide on Perl, but it is well worth owning and covers a lot of topics (including Perl 5.12) in small concise sections or "Items" that end with a "Things To Remember" section which is a list of key points that the reader should "remember".I highly recommend this book for any perl programmer, even though it is geared towards the intermediate to advanced Perl programmer.I also recommend checking out the book's website (effectiveperlprogramming dot com), which states "The Effective Perler is the online extension of the Effective Perl Programming, 2nd Edition."I try to visit the website every couple of days, it has more informative "Items" that did not make it into the book.It's worth a visit and there are fairly consistent posts. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (305)

Excellent intro book to Perl
This book is an excellent introduction to Perl. I bought it without knowing anything about this language and in a few days I was able to set up nice scripts.

Decent content, poor editorial style
The authors do a good job of getting the concepts across, but this book is high on:

- Larry Wall.Ok, sure, he invented Perl and I'm sure he's a smart guy - but really guys, get over your love affair with him. It's really not helpful.
- Footnotes.For the love of god, stop it.Sometimes it seems there's more text in the footnotes that in the section that the footnotes cover.It's distracting at best.
- Perl.Sure, it's a Perl book and it's going to favorable to Perl - but - Perl isn't going to cure cancer, create world peace or create a 1000mpg car.Stop treating it like it's magic juice.
- Condescension.I personally get the feeling that the authors are riding a rather spirited moral high horse and if you don't agree with them, you're just not that smart.

They have good information and it's laid out well.The writing style and editing detracted immensely from this book for me.

New to Programming
I have had a Linux course and a course on pseudocode, and supposedly had the prerequisites to take a Perl course at the college. The class basically consisted of reading the text and then completing the graded homework. I pick up on patterns very easily, but struggled because the code in the book was just snippets and examples were sorely lacking. In order to see a pattern, I needed to see the code used for an actual purpose, i.e., "find the social security numbers that begin with 547." The book will tell you this is the code and this is what it looks like, but does not give an application piece. With the Internet, it would be great if the authors linked a website to the book which has applicable uses of the code. This could even be as a Wiki, so others could contribute. I read the book 3-4 times and acquired a "knowledge" level of Bloom's taxonomy. If you were to ask me for the command for such and such, I could tell you. However, I can't use the codes in actual situations--which should be the whole point of learning Perl.

Great learning book
This is my first book that I have read to learn Perl. It is very well written. Concise and easy to understand. I would recommend it to others looking to learn Perl as well.

(Almost) the best introduction to Perl
I own about two dozen Perl books, including the 2nd and 3rd editions of 'Learning Perl'. I'm now buying the 4th edition of 'Learning Perl', and this review is motivated by the negative (level 1) reviews on amazon.com that I just finished reading. I find that the negative reviews on target (more or less) but that they miss the point of 'Learning Perl'.

I recommend 'Learning Perl' to the Perl hacker, the Perl beginner, and the complete beginner, and my recommendation comes without qualification. However, the reader should not expect a perfect book, because the shortcomings identified in the negative reviews exist. This review attempts to answer the most common complaints.

You don't learn a language by reading a book, just as you don't learn to play a musical instrument by reading a book. In both cases, you MUST(!!!) practice, practice, practice. Mastery of the language comes only after many, many hours of struggle (either with the language or with the instrument.)

'Learning Perl' is targeted to those who sit at the keyboard and write code. As such, it doesn't do much for casual readers, or those who want to study the language from an academic standpoint, or for the typical student trying to complete class assignments. This book gives good answers to legitimate questions, but the trick is that the answer won't do a learner any good until he knows what the question is. It takes a good while of writing Perl to know what the questions are ... and only then can one really appreciate this book.

'Learning Perl' is programmer centric, Perl centric, and Unix centric. What I mean is that it gives up its value only to those who are willing to expend effort to mine it. For those willing to work hard, reading and rereading, writing and rewriting, this is a very good book. ... Read more

Product Description
Perl is an enormously popular scripting language that runs on many different operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X, and provides programmers with a robust and powerful programming language that is easy to learn, yet sufficiently complex to tackle just about any job. As such, it's a perfect programming language for those new to programming to learn. Perl Programming for the Absolute Beginner has been designed to teach you how to develop Perl scripts and to help you become an effective programmer, and teaches concepts through the creation of simple games. Whether you are an experienced programmer looking to learn another language or you are reading this book as the first step in your programming career, you will find that this book's games-based teaching approach makes the learning process a lot more enjoyable. You will also find that the knowledge you'll gain from developing Perl-based games will provide you with a strong foundation from which you can branch out and tackle more complex challenges. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Perl Absolutely Thumbs up for beginngers
This book is great for the beginning programmer who has never programmed before. Young teens around 15 years of age can be a programmer with this book. Perl can be easy to learn if taught the right way and this book does. For instance, I took a Perl online class, after the third week I was lost and just dropped it. It was because of the way it was being taught. The instructor was using upper level math for all the assignments and instructions. This book uses building games as the foundation to learn, same programming language but taught in a way that can be understood so you don't have to learn calculus at the same time...thumbs up...children as young as 15 and up can and should get this book. Start young bright future... ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a guide to Perl¿s most common Win32 extensions, grouped by their functionality. The new edition updates coverage from Perl 5.05 to current Perl version 5.6.It also includes new chapters offering critical, badly-needed information regarding security for Win32Perl, the topic most highly requested by reviewers.The appendices have descriptions and syntax of each function in the extensions covered.Each chapter makes extensive use of code segments to illustrate the use of specific functions and real world scenarios in which these functions can be used.Amazon.com Review
Core Perl is an incredibly powerful programming language thathas proved a major hit with the Unix and Windows programmingcommunity. Add a whole heap of plug-in modules, and it raises thelanguage to a whole new level of usability and usefulness.

In thisexcellent volume, author Dave Roth (who, coincidentally, is a prolificWin32 Perl module writer) thoroughly documents and explains thestandard extensions, gathering for the first time all of theinformation vital to squeezing the best from these freeware ad-ins.

From ODBC to user authentication over networks and even playing .wavfiles, there's something here to interest anyone usingPerl on a Windows-based platform. Roth even explains the intricaciesof using the Win32::API module to access dynamic-link libraries (DLLs)directly--powerful stuff, indeed.

Backed up by dozens of usefulcode snippets and examples, this is such a useful book that noself-respecting Win/Perl hacker should be without it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Good but dated
Good book to have if your are doing Perl program on a Windows Platform.The book is getting a little long in the tooth but much of the information is still useful.Maybe it is time for a new edition.

great book
I wish it were a bit more modern but thankfully almost everything that worked in nt also works in vista :-)

This book is a must have for the perl windows user. If only I had gotten it earlier.

A good summary of Win32 administration
While this book is old and maybe showing it's age on some topics (and perhaps missing some new technologies) it summarizes and explains lots of stuff. For example, you may know how to use OLE/COM but the Automation chapter explains the terminology and what are all this objects are doing behind the scenes in a Perl perspective.

I also think that this book needs a new edition with updated content and perhaps with some new chapters.

Simply the best book for the Win32 Libraries
Win32 Perl Programming: The Standard Extensions is, without question, the best scripting book I have ever owned. It has a partner book, "Win32 Perl Scripting: The Administrators Handbook" and between the 2 of them I can pretty well complete any task I need to using Perl. Some of the modules have been slightly updated since the 2nd edition, but a quick look at cpan will solve any of those rare situations. I cannot recommend this book enough if your a Windows Administrator and have ever wondered if Perl could be benifical to your evironment.

A must-have in your Perl library
If you are doing Windows programming, and you've been suffering through trying to figure out how to enumerate the machines and users in your domain(s), change passwords, gather accounting information, etc., then you MUST have this book.And you should probably book mark the author's homepage,..., as it has a slew of programs and utilities. ... Read more

Product Description
Don’t spend your time wading through manuals to learnPerl. Spend it doing what you do best—creating Web pages! Perl isquickly developed and results-oriented. With this book, you’ll moveseamlessly from the basics of this language to building dynamic Websites. Combining easy-to-understand instructions with visual examples,Perl Fast & Easy® Web Development offers a unique, hands-on approachto this popular programming language that you won’t find anywhereelse. Less time, less effort, more results! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Very Satisfied
I received the book prompt, in very good condition and in time for school. I was very satisfied with the product and service.

outdated and poor concept flow
I teach perl and web design at the university level and was very disappointed with this book.The author first covers the basics of perl but does so in a manner for suited for a mechanical user's guide than a tutorial.Each variable type is covered first, scalars through hashes, before moving on to topics like conditionals and loop constructs.In practice this approach means that the student can't run any meaningful test programs until they are, in this case, 100 pages into the book.The author gets around this by using loops in his examples 30 pages or so before they are even introduced.

How to actually get a webserver running is glossed over, with instructions only for Microsoft Personal Web Server for windows 98 or NT (!!!).The HTML introduction uses coding styles and conventions from the early days of the web, before content and style separation with CSS became standard for developers.Here he encourages the use of antiquated things (by web standards) like the font tag and frames, both indicators of outdated web development technique.

As for actually using perl for web development, he doesn't even mention templating techniques and tools such as HTML::Template, Mason or the template toolkit.Without these the user might as well just be using PHP.

I usually am pretty forgiving with technical books so I have to mention something good.I do like the simple way each short topic is presented with screenshots to guide the user along.the text is also fairly lucid and well-written.However, I definitely can't recommend this book mostly because everything it introduces are as if it was written in 1997, which is ages ago in terms of the web.If you want something more modern I suggest something like Suehring's "Beginning Perl Web Development: From Novice to Professional" or just using the myriad of free tutorials online.Both would be far better than this book.

Just like the title says.
This is not a know it all book on Perl, but it will get you started coding and executing right away.
I liked the way Les takes you through coding a program step by step and then explaining what each step accomplishes. The book has about 20 coding and execution examples, some just pure perl, some using HTML and some with a little javascript.Even if you don't know these areas you get the feel for how Perl interfaces with them.
The book will also take you into ways to do some data base interfacing. Les uses Microsofts Access for the data base example, but will also work if you know mySQL.Les will even give you steps for setting up the PWS (Personal Web Server) on non Windows XP operating systems like W98.
The last chapter takes you through a complete case study using a contact data base using some web design principles.
With the exception of a a few minor coding errors, this book in my opinion is top notch and the very best for getting a good head start on learning Perl.
... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (9)

Great "used" books
It was in much better condition that I thought.Never know what to expect, but hey it's worth a chance for a great price.I was surprise to see it was in excellent condition, since it was rated as "very good" condition.It looks like a new book to me.That's why I keep buying "used" books from Amazon.

Good, but not too essential for the experienced
This book is not essential, if you already have several years of experience with Perl, if you know who are Damian Conway, Randal Schwartz and Abigail, and if you know the meaning of weird words like CPAN, Perl Monks and "zero-width positive look-ahead assertion".

If you don't know what these things are, then with a little motivation you can find everything about them using Google without the need for this book. If this would be any other book about programming, i'd give it no more than 3 stars.

However, brian d foy's first-person writing style is very readable and enjoyable, which awards this book an extra star, and does make this book a good buy for people who learned the basics from Learning Perl or Programming Perl. Furthermore, as great and relevant as The Camel Book is, its last edition was published in 2000, and it is already a little dated, in terms of both the technology and the culture of Perl, so Mastering Perl is a pretty good way to get up-to-date.

To sum up - while this book is not as essential as Programming Perl, Perl Cookbook or Perl Best Practices, it is certainly up to the high standards set by those O'Reilly titles.

A Collection Of Perl Stuff
This should not be called "Mastering Perl" but rather, "A Bunch Of Perl Stuff We Didn't Know What To Do With So We Put Them In This Book."You will find some interesting things but this book will not help you Master Perl.If you are looking for mastery try "Perl Best Practices",
"Advanced Perl" (1st and 2nd Ed) and "Higher Order Perl."

This book has interesting pieces that you will learn from but it is mis-titled.

Perfect Companion Perl Reference
'Mastering Perl' is another gem in the line of O'Reilly Perl books that hav continued to set the standard for over a decade now.From the original Perl references that simply discussed the language from the basics of variable declaration to the most complicated ways you can use Perl, O'Reilly has continued to add more and more and more.Many new revisions and editions to the original Perl books were made, 'Learning Perl' was released and now 'Mastering Perl'.Is this too many books, is this simply a cash cow from O'Reilly?Yes and NO.Obviously publishers are here to try and make money, but this isn't a book that was just released for the sake of releasing it.I feel that 'Mastering Perl' is a fine addition to this line of books and well worth picking up for all serious Perl programmers.I feel that any book which builds on your programming skills and you can get something new from is worth the time and effort to read and learn from.This book is a welcome edition and I still feel that the Perl line of books (O'Reilly's original bread and butter) is the best the company has and it's a solid effort.If you want to go beyond the basics and sponge out even more goodies from this great language, pick this 300+ page book up today, kick back and become the best Perl developer that you can!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Mastering Perl: at least a three (3) step process
The journey to mastering Perl requires at least three (3) steps :)
One optional route would be to read:
1) Learning Perl
2) Intermediate Perl... and finally
3) Mastering Perl

brian d foy mentions in his introduction and appendix A that the path to mastery involves learning from many people... and to learn from brian is an advantage. Appendix A is a list of Further Reading and by following up on many of these compounds the effect of the book. You get the bang for your buck.

Chapter 3 on Secure Programming Techniques is helpful because it places the topic front and center. This topic should find its way downstream into Learning Perl to encourage secure programming as early as possible.

I found immediate value in the chapters on benchmarking, profiling (especially DBI profiling) and logging. The chapters on Cleaning Up Perl (chapter 7: perltidy and de-obfuscation) and Configuring Perl (chapter 11: dealing with switches) are a great recap of material critical for "creating professional programs with Perl".

PS - My personal route to mastering Perl had a required stop at "Programming the Perl DBI". ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (15)

A trashing of the first edition ..........
This is a blatant misrepresentation of the excellent first edition of this book: Advanced Perl Programming.It's as if they published a 2nd edition of GoF Design Patterns but it was written by the Three Stooges and contained a rambling account of Moe, Larry, and Curly trying to implement an HTML parser.If fact that would have been a better book than this!Most of this book is filled with lists of parsing modules but with no coherent thread of discussion about how to use these modules to do anything besides trivial parsing of simple documents!The only reason this gets 2 stars is due to the very first chapter which is a decent discussion of "advanced techniques" such as introspection and a very brief discussion of perl internals.However after that you can use the rest of this atrocity to wipe your ass with......

Excellent reference for the serious Perl developer
This book truly lives up to it's title - this is a book for advanced developers who have a solid understanding of not only the Perl language but of higher level computer science concepts.

While there are some intermediate topics and short introductions, this is not a book to learn theory -- this is a book to show you how to take the theoretical concepts you've learned elsewhere and apply them to Perl, and to understand more of the internal workings of the language.

more a guide to CPAN than to the Perl language
In his preface to Advanced Perl Programming, 2nd Edition, Simon Cozens says that the focus in Perl programming has shifted, since the first edition, from techniques to resources.Rather than write really good new code, authors rely on the CPAN to find existing code and use that to solve the unoriginal parts of their problems.To cater to the discerning Perl programmer, then, the book has been completely rewritten.Instead of covering the parts of the Perl programming language that are often unexploited by more novice hackers, APP2 focuses on providing an overview of some of the major solved problems in Perl, and the modules that provide some of the solutions.

Only Chapter 1, "Advanced Techniques," bears much resemblance to the previous edition of APP.It covers subject matter closer to the language than to the modules involved: globs, CORE::, objects, B, and compilation.Each subsequent chapters discusses a common programming problem, shows off a few existing solutions (in the form of code on the CPAN), and sometimes demonstrates how to put those existing solutions to use.Among the topics covered are parsing, templating, serialization, unicode, and testing.POE, Inline, and Acme also get a chapter each.

Simon's writing is, as always, lucid and easy to follow.He provides good example problems, and he builds solutions that tend to do a good job of selling the modules on display.I must admit to feeling compelled to go do more with POE and some of the Lingua:: tools, after finishing their respective chapters.

In the end, though, I felt unfulfilled.While APP1 was not one of O'Reilly's best Perl books, it delivered what it promised: advanced techniques for writing Perl code.What APP2 delivers is a guide to avoiding the need for advanced techniques.It will save you from needing to use the strangest bits of Perl, not show you how.(The back cover quotes Andy Wardley as saying, "This book of spells goes a long way to unlocking those secrets [of advanced Perl code.]"I think, rather, that it just teaches the incantations.)

Perhaps my disappointment is predicated entirely on my incorrect expectations.If this book had been called "Leveraging the CPAN," I'd probably consider it a great success.You may, instead, be interested inIntermediate Perl or Mastering Perl.

A very different beast to the first edition
As other reviewers have noted, there's not a whole lot in common with the first edition of this book, either in feel or content. It's rather questionable whether this merits being called a second edition. Something like 'Problem solving with CPAN' would be a more accurate title (then again, perhaps it's just as well I don't work in the publishing industry).

It does still cover some of the material of the first edition, such as globs, closures, AUTOLOAD, the Perl class model, and some Perl internals, but it's all been compressed into one chapter.

The other chapters discuss various subjects using CPAN modules and gives some insight into how the material from the first chapter was used to solve these problems. A wide variety of issues are discussed, including serialization and object relational mapping, natural language parsing, templating and unicode. Some superficially similar material could be found in Perl Cookbook, but the discussion here is deeper (and more up to date), there's very little overlap.

Exactly how much you get out of the book will probably be dependent on how well you know the innards of CPAN and how interesting you find the topics. I liked the parsing and natural language processing chapters a lot, and the chapter on inlining code from other languages was diverting; conversely, I can't bring myself to find Unicode even remotely stimulating, and the POE (some sort of event-based framework) chapter didn't do much for me. The testing chapter is a solid addition to the material in Intermediate Perl, and I picked up some pointers to modules to check out, but it didn't feel all that advanced.

This is a book that fits in quite nicely with Intermediate Perl and Programming Perl -- it cleans up a few niggling details not well discussed in the former book, without having the intimidating heft of the latter, and also provides a wide ranging overview of several topics and the CPAN solutions for them. As such, it will bring an intermediate programmer up a few notches.

Already advanced Perl programmers may be disappointed, and those hoping for an updated version of the first edition will definitely be out of luck, but if you know what you're getting, and evaluate it on those terms, rather than what the title suggests, I think you'll enjoy it.

Very disappointing
This book was slated to come out for a long time before it actually did, and I naturally assumed that Simon was working on something ambitious and that it was taking him longer than he planned. I bought it sight-unseen, but quickly discovered it was more of a tour of CPAN than an in-depth book deserving of the title Advanced Perl Programming. I know from his blog that Simon was wrapping up his life to go be a missionary in Japan, so now I think the book was late because he was working on *that* project after he had agreed to write this book. Just speculation.

It reads more like an article on Perl.com or in the Perl Journal, and could easily have been several articles spread out over a few months. I have to wonder if he started the book with the idea that "advanced" means "knowing about useful modules on CPAN" or if the idea came to him sometime after it was clear the book was running late.

Regardless, consider looking at it if you see it in the store. It's not without its value, but I can't see paying for a book that mostly says, "Here's someone else's work to check out." An advanced book ought to be getting into -- well -- advanced techniques, useful info that's hard to come by, something that isn't ALREADY AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE. ... Read more

Product Description
In the days before personal computers, BASIC was the easy programming language to learn, and serious programmers learned FORTRAN or COBOL to do “real work.” Today, many people have discovered that Perl is both a great beginning programming language and one that enables them to write powerful programs with little effort.

If you’re interested in discovering how to program (or how others program), Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, is for you. If you already know something about programming (but not about Perl), this book is also for you. If you’re already an expert programmer, you’re still welcome to read this book; you can just skip the basic stuff (you never know what kind of new tips and tricks you’ll pick up).

This reference guide shows you how to use Perl under many different operating systems, such as UNIX, many flavors of Windows (Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP), and Macintosh OS 9 and OS X; in fact, Perl runs on many more operating systems than these.

Here's a sampling of what Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, has to offer:

Product Description

The book is studded with examples, exercises, tips, and tricks gleaned from years of "speaking Perl," but it avoids being prescriptive, and his casual advice is sometimes disconcerting. He discusses white space in formatting code, but he breezes past error handling. He teaches recursion without warning that it is a support nightmare. Often he hides behind Perl's creed that "there is more than one way to do it" to avoid advocating what the newbies need: one better-than-average way to do it. Johnson cannot be both advocate of Perl and teacher of beginning programming, though he has tried: had his experiment been bolder, it would deserve wider attention within the Perl and computer science communities. --Peter Leopold ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Ok for Perl learning, but not for complete newbies
It's strange that the author says he wants to teach non-programmers both programming skills and Perl knowledge, yet he introduces regular expressions, which are some of the most complicated programming concepts even to advanced people, very early in the book.There is very little in the book to motivate someone who's never programmed before, as she will surely be intimated from the very beginning by code examples, pseudo-code listings, and uses of (absent explanations of) concepts completely alien to her.

On the other hand, if the reader already knows something about programming (e.g., what regular expressions are!), and just wants an easy way to get started on Perl, she could benefit from the example-led style of Johnson.The point to keep in mind is, this is not a book for learning programming, but a book for learning Perl.As a Perl intro book, it is more relaxed than, say, "Sam's teach yourself Perl in 24 hours" and less boring than, say, "Learning Perl."I just wish the code examples were explained more clearly.

Great book for true beginner
This book does a good job of teaching "how to program" to a person with little or no experience in programming. I think it is one of the better books for green programmers. I also like the thorough explanations that teach the concepts of programming "step by step" rather than rattling off lots of code with weak explanations. This book also does a good job in not assuming you speak "computerese" by explaining a lot of terms commonly used like "scalar", "lists", "interpolation", etc. This book was a great stepping stone for me to be able to get into the meatier O'Reilly series.

Here's a couple of extracts: "Programming is about solving problems...Computers are mindless devices capable only of doing what they are told...When a method for solving a problem is reduced to a series of simple, repeatable instructions, we call that set of instructions an algorithm."
"...scalar variable, meaning it can only hold a single value."
"If you think of a variable as a storage bin with a name and an address, then you can think of a reference as a forwarding address. When you store a reference to another variable in a scalar variable, you are not storing that variable's value, but the address where its value is stored."

If you want to "understand" Perl, this is for you.
I recently got a job at a telecoms company because of my experience with linux. I have no experience whatsoever in programming and they knew that and I was encouraged to learn Perl.

I bought this book after reading many reviews on it both good and bad. It was the bad reviews that told me this was the perfect book for a beginner. I like to think of myself as a person who likes to understand why I do things rather than just doing something because thats how it has always been done. This book did that for me.

Precise explanations of Perl style, syntax and regular expressions more experienced programmers take for granted were a welcome sight. Even though there isn't really a right or wrong way in perl this book teaches you the right way to do things along with the full explanations I required to understand why I was doing something one way and not the other.

The exercises following the chapters are challenging but not daunting. They allow you to use the knowledge you've learned in the previous chapters, even if at first it seems impossible, but to quote the author, "Programming is a matter of practice."

I recommend this to all who are new to programming in general and wish to make Perl their first language. Now all I need is a book on C programming that does the same this one is doing for me.

Yes, I have not read this book completely, yet I have done 3 useful scripts for work and I'm amazing myself. Perl is making my life and my co-workers' much easier.

Do not buy if you search for CGI skills
Funny how different opinions people may have about a book here. I bought this book having read a number of praising comments and tried to use the book for my needs (elements of Perl and CGI).

First, the book gets very, very, very lengthy with the elements (well, the very name of the book is "Elements of...") and it never gets very far beyond a "hello world". Being a programmer I would certainly understand most of the stuff in tenth of the amount of
pages.

What is Perl most famous for? CGI, you might say. So would I.

This book has only 4 (four) pages on CGI programming and ONLY 20 pages about the use of modules! The book does not even mention databases!!!! As it says, it is only about the elements, not the use of the language. No CGI, believe me!!!

The index of the book is next to useless. I have searched for several keywords without successand come accross them in the text when quickly scanning for them in various contexts. Is indexing really this hard???

The book has got just about everything wrong for anybody who knows at least a bit about programming and/or is accustomed to using a normal book with a normal index.

It may be good for a rookie programmer who reads it page to page from the front cover to the end cover. I am an adult reader and want to have a book with ORGANIZATION of data.

If you are planning to write CGI programs, buy ANYTHING but this book.

As my budget was limited to one book I had to use the Internet for
tutorials which - surprise surprise - covered the same topics in a tenth of the space and included CGI programming stuff as well.

Great book to start learning Perl and Programming
This book is a great way to teach yourself Perl and Programming in general.Coming from a background as a dabbler in C and JavaScript, this book was an excellent starting point for my Perl education.I found the 3rd chapter about programming style and procedure to be extremely helpful.I would recommend this book over "Learning Perl" (the llama book) because of its clearly written style and real-worldish examples. ... Read more

Product Description
Programming Web Services with Perlbrings Perl users all the information they need to create web services using their favorite language. It steers clear of the hype surrounding web services and concentrates on what is useful and practical. It was written for Perl programmers who have no prior knowledge of web services. You can pick it up without any understanding of XML-RPC or SOAP and be able to apply these technologies easily, through the use of publicly available Perl modules detailed in the book. The book introduces the major web services standards, such as XML-RPC, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI, and shows how to implement Perl servers and clients using these standards. You'll find detailed references on both the XML and SOAP toolkits, and will learn when to use one technology in favor of the other.It is rich with programming examples that you'll find useful well past the learning stage. And, moving beyond the basics, the book offers solutions to problems of security, authentication, and scalability. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Needs update
This book desperately needs an update with real-world SOAP examples passing complex data into SOAP::Lite running in PERL.

Fantastic
This book was fantastic and allowed me to get up and running on a web services project for work very quickly.

While I still needed a few internet resources to complete the project, I would not have been able to get far along without this book!

relevant, practical and well-balanced
Programming Web Services with Perl is principally a book on implementing solutions using XML-RPC and SOAP in Perl. It also covers complementary and alternative standards such as WSDL, UDDI, and REST in some detail. And on the periphery, it finishes with a whirlwind tour of developing message routing, alternative data encoding within XML, security, transactions, workflow, internationalization, service discovery, extension, and management techniques and specifications.

The book assumes the reader will have the knowledge of an intermediate level Perl programmer. I.e., the reader is assumed to have a working knowledge of references, data structures, and object-oriented Perl. On the other hand no previous knowledge of XML, XML-RPC, SOAP or XML related technologies is required.

It should also be mentioned that both of the authors Randy J. Ray and Pavel Kulchenko are also the principle developers of the most popular XML-RPC and SOAP Perl modules: XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite respectively. That said, the book is not a soap box for the authors to tout the merits of their tools.

Rather, it is a practical book which starts with grounding fundamentals. Readers should walk away with a core understanding of XML-RPC and SOAP and not just a particular tool set for working with them. The authors examine the alternative XML-RPC and SOAP tools, illustrate how they are used, and give practical and even handed reasons why their modules should be preferred. Which comes down to issues of features, active development, support, and the amount of work required to code to a particular interface. They then settle down to a comfortable and thorough guide to XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite.

The topics and issues are illustrated throughout using real world web services. For example creating an XML-RPC client for O'Reilly's Meerkat news wire, or a SOAP client to covert use.perl.org's journal stream to RSS. Code is presented to the reader filtered down to highlight each particular issue as it is discussed. This is nice in that it avoids listing slight variations of the same code multiple times, but on the down side it can also leave the reader flipping back and forth to reassemble an example in their head. Full code for each example is provided in the appendices. And all of the example code may be downloaded from O'Reilly at [their web site].

All-in-all, the book is a thorough practical introduction to working with XML-RPC, SOAP and related technologies. When I started reading the book, I was a bit disappointed to see that it only covered XML-RPC and SOAP related services. When I finished, I was impressed with how very much information they'd managed to pack into so few pages.

And yet, I was left wishing there'd been a more through coverage of interoperability issues between other SOAP implementations and things like custom de-serializers. To be honest interoperability and de-serialization are mentioned, and the authors do an excellent job of referring the reader on to sources for continued reading on most other topics.

The book does an admirable job balancing content, length, and information density. Not to mention an excellent job delivering the information that will still be relevant years and not just weeks from the date published. Most of the topics I'd wished to see covered in more depth are those that are still developing and consequently most likely to become quickly dated. In short a well balanced practical guide to applying XML-RPC and SOAP to solve problems.

A "complete reference" is oh so hard to find...
And yet this book covers every aspect of web service development utilizing perl.As a long time user of the original Frontier::RPC2 module, things have come a long way, and with that greater complexity, the concepts have grown in scope considerably.This IS the book that you want to read if you REALLY want to understand SOAP and XML-RPC.From the XML DTD's to implementation code (either standalone applications or utilizing mod_perl) this book covers everything in between.In all it is a welcome addition to the O'Reilly family of Perl books.

Great intro to XML-RPC
As with all O'Reilly books there's a great intro to the technologies. They take you through how it works, not just how to deploy some code. When you get to the XML-RPC modules, they don't force a solution on you, but give a great tour of what's available and let you pick. For me, the highlight was the intro to Randy J. Ray's RPC::XML modules (he's also one of the authors). I've been fighting with getting the 'system.*' handlers hacked in with other aproaches and it was great to see someone had already figured out such a clean approach. (Which is something since Perl can get reeeaaal ugly!) This book has saved me many days of wasted development. ... Read more

Product Description
"Beginning Perl, Second Edition is a well-named text that starts exactly where it claims…This book is a fine place to start."— James Edward Gray II, Slashdot contributor

"...there are great examples, and projects assigned after each chapter to help you really understand and remember how to code in Perl."— Mark Spritzler, JavaRanch Bartender

"This book is a well-conceived introduction to Perl in tutorial form... A Very Good Book. :) :) :) :) of 5."— George Woolley of Oakland Perl Mongers

"The Perl (this book) teaches is strong industry-standard Perl that is…considered best practice."— Jack Herrington, Editor, Code Generation NetworkOriginally created as a powerful text processing tool, Perl has since evolved into a multi-purpose, multi-platform language capable of implementing a variety of tasks such as system administration, CGI and network programming, XML processing, and more. Beginning Perl, Second Edition provides valuable insight into Perl’s role regarding all of these tasks and more.Commencing with a comprehensive overview of language basics, you'll learn all about important concepts such as Perl's data types and control flow constructs. This material sets the stage for a discussion of more complex topics, such as writing custom functions, using regular expressions, and file input and output. Next, we move on to the advanced topics of object oriented programming, modules, CGI programming, and database administration with Perl’s powerful database interface module, DBI. The examples and code provided offer you all of the information you need to start writing your own powerful scripts to solve the problems listed above, and many more.Whether you are a complete novice or an experienced programmer, Beginning Perl, Second Edition offers an ideal guide to learning Perl. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Learning Perl Programming
Being experienced in programming (i.e., HTML, JavaScript, C++, Java, CSS), I was curious about Perl Programming. I read various articles and information in the Internet, and decided to get my feet wet in this language. A quick review of James Lee Beginning Perl prompted me to purchase subject book. I am very happy I did it. James Lee walks you through with detailed steps how to program Perl. He provides numerous resources on Perl, including source code of his book.
His teaching is clear, detailed, and includes manyexercises to comprehend subject matter. I really enjoyed the flow of information presented in book chapters. In reminds me of some of the excellent [...] programming books. Once you started a chapter you want to continue the learning process of book. I worked all the exercises since I am a firm believer that practice is the best approach to learn correctly a new field.
Specific characteristic of this book is that author explains with many examples in a clear and precise manner how to execute correct Perl programming.
Excellent book!
Thank you
JosephJL

Excellent Book for First-time Programmers
While I have worked in IT/Tech for many years in a variety of supporting and management roles, I confess that Perl is my first programming language. This book provides the necessary background for a first-time programmer like myself to really understand and begin to make use of the palette of Perl's powerful features. Code examples fit well with the text, while explanations are clear, concise and illuminating. I cannot comment on the usefulness of the book for seasoned programmers, as I am not one of those. But for beginners, this book gives hope that what initially appears as an arcane and mystifying "teka" is actually both comprehensible and practical. Beginning Perl is not a fatty and daunting tome, but is just long enough to provide the kind of "big-picture" overview that makes it easier to approach other books devoted to related topics: regular expressions, OO programming with Perl, Perl and CGI, Perl and SQL Server administration, or Perl and system administration, now have a context and framework for me that they did not have previously. Like a good first map, "Beginning Perl" has pointed out the major landmarks, and has helped me to identify those areas I may wish to visit and explore more carefully in the future. An excellent first book.

Kindle version review
I read this on a kindle 2.

This book is great for learning Perl. Before reading this book I knew C++ so I knew about programming but I didn't have experience with a scripting language.

I am very pleased with both the book and Perl. The book is easy to read and follow. For the kindle version of the book, the code examples are actually pictures, not text. At first I thought this was a downside but after reading other Perl books on the Kindle I think it is better to have it in that format. Since the code is a picture, long lines of code do not end up wrapping around and looking weird. This usually happens when the code is commented.

Recommended for learning Perl.

Great explanations but slow to put things together
The strength of the book is that it offers truly clear and precise explanations of how to do basic coding with Perl.

The drawback of the book is that it rarely takes its examples very far, not even as the book progresses.It is not really until the chapter about references (which is a great chapter) that the examples and exercises get interesting.

For someone who is having trouble understanding why their script isn't doing what they thought it would, you will not find better explanations than here.

Decent Book
The book is acceptable for learning Perl. The examples are straight-forward, but seems to intended for non-programmers. Beginning Perl is not the same as Beginning Programming Using Perl. ... Read more

Product Description
B> The Web Wizard's Guide to Perl and CGI teaches readers how to create Web sites that will have an audience coming back for more. From writing scripts to analyzing users' data, this book helps readers create well-designed, user-friendly Web sites.This book covers the following topics: elementary scripts, programming and Perl basics, the Perl/Web interface, advanced Perl statements, how to store data in arrays, how to use Perl to work with Patterns, and how to use multiple page forms that share data.It assumes no programming experience, and also acts as a handy reference.The Web Wizard Series from Addison-Wesley is a series of brief, introductory books written by instructors on Internet and Web programming topics of interest to anyone who wants to create web pages. Each book includes an easy-to-read, full-color design featuring plenty of hands-on examples and exercises, and is written in a concise and practical manner so readers can use the technologies in no time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great Introduction to PERL Programming
This book is thorough in its knowledge, easy to read, with good references, and very well outlined and organized.It takes the reader and aspiring PERL / CGI Programmer from scratch to the point where he or she will be fully capable of writing their own fully functional and interactive PERl-CGI based web site in a UNIX/LINUX/Windows platform in a matter of a couple of weeks.I covers all of the necessary topics such as parameters, functions, variables, lists and arrays, sub routines, forms, writing and reading to files, and much more.It also provides a solid foundation to jump into the more advanced topics in PERL and CGI programming.I am very pleased with this introduction to PERL and highly recomend this book to anyone who already knows html and other programming languages and would like to add PERL to their tools list.This is an academic treatment of PERL although not a scientific one.

But its out of print
Amazon may have copies, but the publisher tells our bookstore its now out of print. I liked the book, and decided to adopt it for our Perl/CGI course because the book we had been using went out of print (CGI/Perl by Diane Zak). The campus bookstore informed me that the book was out of print. oh well.

Great Introduction To Using Perl And CGI
I really liked this Introductory Perl book. It covers a lot of
ground without assuming that the reader is a genius. This full
color book has many features I liked such as call outs (kind of
like arrow diagrams) on code sections, short code pieces
with a line-by-line descriptions and things like tip and warning boxes. It covers things from starting your first CGI script to trickier things like regular expressions and using files on the web Server. An excellent starting book for people wanting to
learn Perl or Perl scripting.

Just right for a beginner...
If you have absolutely no experience with perl and cgi, you'll probably appreciate this book. Assumes no prior knowledge and presents information in manageable, non-intimidating fashion. ... Read more

Product Description
Computer Science & Perl Programming: Best of The Perl Journal is the first of three volumes from the archives of The Perl Journal that O'Reilly has exclusive rights to distribute. This book is a compilation of the best TPJ has to offer: 71 articles providing a comprehensive tour of how experts implement computer science concepts in the real world, with code walkthroughs, case studies, and explanations of difficult techniques that can't be found in any other book.This insightful volume covers:

tips for beginnersregular expressionsdata structuresnetworkingdatabasessoftware development processesobject-oriented programmingadvanced Perl programming techniques

Customer Reviews (5)

Good but not great
The material is great, but the first edition (at least) suffers from enough typesetting flaws to make some content difficult to follow. There are several instances where the prose indicates some text is supposed to be highlighted in some way but it is not e.g; bold to indicate differences from an earlier code listing, or variables missing the distinguishing overlines resulting in incomprehensible formulae.

Good, but over my head
I enjoyed learning the algorithms they presented, but I don't have much use for them in my work.This is a good collection for those who are interested in doing very difficult work in the easiest Language to Succeed in; Perl.

Absolutely lovable and entirely unique
The title is misleading in that it doesn't give the full impact of what's going on with this book. This book was written by somnething of a who's-who of the Perl community and it's similiarly a massive aggregation the best applications of nearly all of Perl's features. It's true that it's edited versions of TPJ articles but TPJ has always been hands-on and the feel is more as though the best pages were ripped out of already great Perl books to be arranged and edited into one volume. I urge you to think of this as a book in the vein of Programming Perl but written by everyone but Larry Wall. =)

Because nearly every article was written as the result of a Perl feature manifesting itself to violently break through a hard problem, this book contains a collection of examples that no single human could possible contrieve. Other books (even Programming Perl by comparison) relatively thoroughly demonstrate and document the language features but only this one shows each feature shining as it solves real problems in real problems taken from real life. You'll get a feel not only for the syntax of features but how to think about them. You'll start to spot new and better applications for Perl's features in your own programming work.

Compared to other books, it's more verbose than Programming Perl and it neglects the bare basics and moves much further with the ideas. It examines more macro scale ideas than the Perl Cookbook and generalizes thier applications rather than giving numerous specifics. The closest example I can think of is the styles and much of the contents of Advanced Perl Programming, Learning Regular Expressions, Learning Algorithms with Perl and several others rolled into one.

It goes into more depth on why things are the way they are than any other Perl book. For example, one chapter demonstrates how things would go wrong if the order of operators were different than how they are and using the good and bad arrangements walks the reader through infering what the relative orders are. Where other books list the order of operations in a matter-of-fact way, this one leaves you with a sense of order and rationality of things that your intuition and creativity can feed off of when programming.

Quoting from the foreword (Hi Mark Jason Dominus!): "It does not suffer from the usual flaw of the anthology, which is that the best you can hope for is that more than half of the articles are above average. On the contrary, it is by turns brilliant, witty, and profound.". And from the preface: "In a sense, this book was written very carefully and methodically over six years. ... Every issue, there were a lot of new subscribers, many of whom were new to Perl. Common sense dictated that I should include beginner articles in every issue, but I didn't like where that line of reasoning led. If I catered to the novices in every issue, far too many articles would be about beginner topics. ... So I did something very unusual for a magazine: I made it easy (and cheap) for subscribers to get all of the back issues when they subscribed, so they'd be able to enjoy the introductory material. A side effect of this approach was that the articles hang together very well: they tell a consistent "story" in a steady progress from TPJ #1 to TPJ #20...".

Perl's books have always been one of it's major strengths and I'm happy this trend continues. Computer Science & Perl Programming is delightful.

Computer Science and Perl Programming
Ahh how I miss The Perl Journal. This volume brings me right back to the good old days of humor and fine code. Unfortunately, The Perl Journal has been relegated to a quarterly supplement appearing in Sys Admin magazine. Thankfully, some of the knowledge found in the pages of The Perl Journal has been compiled here.

Computer Science and Perl Programming is a collection of 70 articles from The Perl Journal. It is the first volume of a set of three and, in my opinion, the best volume. Jon Orwant, the original editor of The Perl Journal, has done a great job in putting together this volume.

This volume is divided into tips for beginners, regular expressions, data structures, networking, databases, software development processes, object-oriented programming, and advanced Perl programming techniques. I particularly enjoyed the regular expressions, and networking sections. The data structures section was also very useful, as data structures in Perl can tend to be a bit odd. This volume has a good bit of programming knowledge crammed into it, and seems to be a bit more serious than the other two volumes.

All in all, a great read and a great reference to keep around. I would definitely advise anyone interested in Perl to pick up this set, you won't regret it.

Great collection
Computer Science and Perl Programming is a collection of 70-odd articles from The Perl Journal magazine. As the title suggests it focusses on more of the theoretical side of perl. This is the first volume in a series of three books. The second one focusses on web and graphics, and the third one on games and diversions.

CS & PP is divided into seven sections as follows: Beginner Concepts, Regular Expressions, Computer Science, Programming Techniques, Software Development, Networking and Databases. The articles are straight reprints from TPJ and are written by a number of leading perl people such as Larry Wall, Damian Conway, Mark Jason Dominus, etc. Jon Orwant, the publisher of TPJ is the editor for this book.

I haven't finished this book yet but I've greatly enjoyed the articles I've read. A vast array of topics are covered, such as B-Trees, random number generators, benchmarking, makemaker, DBI and even Win32::ODBC and Microsoft Office. There's something for every perl programmer in this book. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
The Web is booming, the majority of CGI applications are coded in Perl.For this reason, there is a huge number of beginners and intermediate developers wanting to get to know Perl in general and Internet applications with Perl in particular.

Learn Perl basics and get up to speed with Internet and Object Oriented programming with just one book.Packed with hints and tips, solutions and exercises, Perl Power! is the perfect jumpstart guide to the hottest features of the latest Perl release.Beginners and intermediate developers an use the intermediate developers can use the introductory chapter to get up and running with Perl 5 fast, and a tutorial on object-oriented programming will supplement knowledge and help to fully exploit the power of Perl.

Since use of freely available modules (included on the CD that comes with the book) dramatically accelerates the development of Perl applications, the book shows how to find the right module for common programming tasks and illustrates the use of many of them in detail. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good introduction to Perl, and great reference
From its corny title you might expect another one of those sleazy introductions to Perl (I can name a few), but I can happily say that this book is an exception. The overview of the language is excellent and verycomprehensible. Even after reading Learning Perl and Programming Perl, Ipicked up some valuable tips. The chapters on Object Oriented Programmingand Perl/Tk are also good. For the Perl/CGI part, you might considerreading additional material, however. All in all, a surprisingly goodintroduction and reference to Perl 5, both for the beginner and the moreadvanced programmer.

Perl power
Excellent book that gets you started with lots of areas of perl. Most of the code I have tried works fine with Activestates's 523 build and with the perl development kit 1.2.4.Havingcode that work is rare with thesebooks especially with Windows. I use 98 and NT and unix.This book is nota diffinitive guide to perl but it gives you a good summay in most of theimportant area's and enought code to get started quickly. It gave me lotsof ideas on things I could use perl for.I also like "Perl 5complete" for theory, but the code for that book is very buggy andhard to get to work. I like its detailed explanation of how things aresuppose to work."Perl Cookbook" is also excellent for how tosolve problems various kinds of problems. These are the best of the perlbooks I have.

Don't buy this book for CGI programming
I bought this book based on the 5-star reviews - never do THAT again......long on abstract examples that don't mirror the real world, short on logical explanations for the common man(woman).. I have hadseveral other PERL books from the local library that were much better(Castros book is good, don't believe the condescending reviews) - not forthe CGI web programmer

Excellent book, well-written with lots of valuable info.
Although my bookshelves are already full of 700-page perl books of the "Teach Yourself" variety, I was unable to find any good explanations of the LWP module.When I found a chapter devoted to LWP inPerl Power, I was thrilled and immediately bought the book.

What I didn'texpect was the bonus of someone finally providing a good explanation ofPerl 5 and object-oriented perl.That section ALSO would have been worththe price of the book.

Even the first chapter had all sorts of insightsand explanations I found invaluable.I've been using perl off and on forabout 3 years, mostly writing quick utilities, and I'll credit this bookwith wanting to make me use perl more.

A Must-Have Perl Reference
This book is a must have, and an excellent addition to the shelf of any Perl programmer, beginner or otherwise. You should be comfortable with general programming concepts to get the best use out of it. Great use ofexamples in here, and a very, *very* good read in comparison to other,denser volumes that cover this topic. Writing style does make it far easierto get the gist in this book, and Mr. Schilli does not bore you to tearswith geek prose, thank heavens. You get the info you need with a snappystyle to boot. ... Read more

Product Description
Whether your knowledge of Perl is casual or deep, this book will make you a more accomplished programmer.It covers complex techniques formanaging production-ready Perl programs and explains methods formanipulating data and objects that may have looked like magic before. Furthermore, it sets Perl in the context of a larger environment, givingyou the background you need for dealing with networks, databases, andGUIs.It also includes a discussion of internals to help you programmore efficiently and embed Perl within C or C within Perl.Major topics include the practical use of packages and classes (object-oriented programming), complex data structures, persistence (e.g., using a database), networking, graphical interfaces using the Tk toolkit, interaction with C language functions, embedding and extending the Perl interpreter, and selected internals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (51)

Greate advanced topics
I have found this book to be a great help in solving real-world customer problems.It gave me the insights and concepts needed to be effective in developing production worthy code.

a most impressive and far-ranging opus
I find myself returning to Srinivasan's work time and time again. I'm a professional EE and CS type with more than 20 years' experience working in the guts of OS kernels, DBMS kernels, networking stacks, compilers, interpreters, window managers, etc., etc. There's always something to be learned from a fresh reexamination of this opus. It certainly will be over the heads of many readers, but don't be discouraged. If you're willing to put forth the effort, I promise you will widen your perspectives and deepen your understanding and appreciation of the power of Perl to solve variegated, intricate systems programming and text processing tasks.

Interesting in parts, outdated in others
From the perspective of 2007, this book suffers from not being all that advanced. Also, some of the examples, particularly in the opening chapters, suffer from being a bit meaningless, e.g. code like $spud = "Wow!" -- er, right.

That said, the opening chapters do contain some pretty useful material which wasn't present in The Llama and which you wouldn't want to slog through The Camel for, including good stuff on references, closures, typeglobs, the symbol table, tied variables and persistence and serialization. There's also an introduction to OO with Perl.

The middle part of the book contains 50 pages on Tk. Useful if you need it,I suppose. But is this advanced?

The last part goes into detail in getting Perl to talk to C, and the internals of Perl. The latter is pretty interesting in a geeky sort of way, and definitely qualifies as 'advanced'. Not many other books about go into this level of detail.

The first 150 pages of this book maintains its relevance for the most part,although much of it (e.g. references and objects) is no longer considered advanced, and you can find discussions elsewhere, e.g. Object Oriented Perl or The Alpaca. The section on Perl internals is probably still of use if you're into that sort of thing. Elsewhere, however, the march of time and reliance on CPAN modules has reduced the vitality of the material.

Worth picking up on the cheap for the earlier chapters.

nice breadth of topics
The book does a nice job of explaining some of the obscure areas of Perl. Each chapter is summarized by showcasing the strengths and weaknesses of Perl with Java,Python,C++,TCL. This is a good refresher book for intermediate level Perl programmers. It was definitely a fun read. I think O'Reilly is readying a second edition.

Best way to learn references
This is one of the four critical books you need to learn Perl; Programming Perl, Learning Perl, Perl Cookbook and Advanced Perl Programming. This book provides a deep understanding of how references (pointers) can be used to increase performance. In addition the book gives you a deeper understanding about how to make better use of hash tables as data structures. The section on code generation using templates is great as well. ... Read more

Product Description
If you build web pages you may eventually want to add a guestbook, order form, page counter, or other interactive elements to your website. CGI Programming 101 explains how to do this in simple, easy-to-understand terms. The book shows you how to write useful, real-world web programs, starting with simple guestbook forms and building up to more advanced applications.

You'll learn:

* The Basics: where to write your CGI programs; how to upload them and set file permissions; how to run them, and how to debug them when things go wrong

* How to decode form data and save it to a file or e-mail it to yourself

* How to create, read, write, and search data files

* How to use Server-Side Includes to add dynamic content to your web site, plus a complete list of Apache SSI directives

* How to use random numbers for displaying banner ads and random images

* How to redirect visitors to another site

* How to extend your programs by using modules

* How to create a MySQL database, and write programs that interact with databases using the DBI module

* How to build an online shopping cart program

* How to e-mail attachments using a CGI program

* How to write secure programs, and protect your programs against hackers and spammers

* How to password-protect an area of your website

...and more.

The second edition has been substantially revised, with 100 pages of new material. It teaches good programming practices from the beginning, including use of the industry-standard CGI.pm Perl module. You'll learn how to protect your form-to-mail programs from being hijacked by spammers, how to build a cookie-based shopping cart, and how to develop a password-protected website. Quick-reference pages and an improved index help you find information easily.

There are also several online tutorials to help you set up your own web server and write CGI programs on any computer system - including Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix.Amazon.com Review
CGI Programming 101: Programming Perl for the World Wide Web is a concise presentation of the key elements of Perl CGI, which makes it perfect for programmers who are under the gun. If you need to get up to speed on text strings, for example, you can read that chapter and be a pro within about 10 minutes.

Form processing is addressed early on, followed by searching and sorting techniques, illustrations of how to use server-side includes (SSI), and other critical issues. There's also a chapter on using MySQL--an open-source SQL database. In general, if you want to get the most out of this book, you'll be better off having some programming experience, be it in BASIC or C++.

The only element missing from this introductory course is an appendix containing Perl's reserved characters, operators, and functions; instead, this material is presented throughout the book. But CGI Programming 101 is still one of the most efficient ways to get up to speed with Perl CGI. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Perl variables, CGI environment variables, form processing, data file I/O, searching/sorting, server-side includes (SSI), random number generation, strings, date and time manipulation, HTTP cookies, e-mail processing, securing scripts, Perl modules, database programming, and custom Perl modules. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

zero to hero with this rocket powered book
I am not a professional programmer. But I do manage the website for the specialist engineering company I founded and run. I like to have "hands on" control of this very important window for our company to the rest of the world.

To increase the appeal of our website and increase the hit rate, I wanted to create some interactive web pages so the browsing public can generate specific information about our products, and to give them some useful applications to use which normally would cost significant money to buy. (We gain because they have to come to our website to use the application.)

A little research on Google revealed that Perl fitted the bill as the program of choice to use. Now I needed to learn Perl. A little more research came up with this book. I specifically wanted to work with numbers, creating and solving equations, and this book had a chapter on "Working with Numbers" (Chapter 9) so I bought it.

It took a little while to get the Apache version of Perl for Windows set up on my computer (the author's website could be a little clearer on how to do this)and get the "Hello World!" to come up on the screen. The big breakthrough was to create a little program to add two numbers together via the Internet on my browser. At that point, the main principles had clicked into place and I was away.

Within weeks, I was creating scripts two and three thousand lines long, taking full advantage of the range and power of Perl to draw graphs, create line drawings and solve complex equations. I created a full blown ordering system and database, which uses the web as a common network for my staff who need to access the database from different buildings on the factory site.

Throughout this process, when I needed a solution to a particular programming problem, I usually found it in my well thumbed copy of Jacqueline Hamilton's book. If I found that there was a bug somewhere in a particular routine, a careful re-read of the relevant part in the book usually came up with the reason why it was not working.

The more I programmed with Perl, the more I realised what a great book this is. I unreservedly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn Perl.

cgi101
This was a very good book to learn some Perl applications programming.The approach is more how to do a task rather than reviewing commands etc.I used it as a supplement to a more theoretical book.Very easy to get into and get started.

The "101" in the title should be taken seriously
The reason I gave this book 3 stars, when I found it of little use, is because the "101" suggests that it's for someone who knows nothing at all about the subject. So why not give it 5, if it is what it said it is? Because it's not enough about anything at all to be really useful- you can't possibly do much of any web development if this is your resource.

Examples? It spends 24 pages on learning perl. (And note that the 'info per page density' is low; lots of white space.) It touches on many aspects of perl, but not enough to do much of anything. So why include it? If you are going to show people how to use perl for web development, they need to first be more grounded in perl than they'll get out of 24 pages.Oh, and as for use of those 24 pages? An entire page is spent explaining how to determine the length of an array. To be fair, there are more examples of perl throughout the book.

Another: Regular Expressions get 8 lots-of-white-space-and-big-print pages. And the chapter on database access is sort of a whirlwind tour of MySQL.

So is the book useless? No, it's a 'toe in the water' book, and it feels kind of scattered. of course, you could then get the "102" book.

Or you could just buy one of those big, meaty books, which would actually be more useful. Making this book easy to read and non-threatening weakens it too much. Of course, this is also a quick and easy way to write a book.

Great book for new and experienced web designers
I bought this book when I first started designing web pages.That was 5 years ago and I still find this book helpful and easy to use.It is a great starting point for persons interested in web design.It has useful examples (I am still using some of these) to help get started.

The best book for beginners
This book is a great beginners guide as well as a reference booklet for veteran programmers.

Ms. Hamilton's style as an author is unbelieveably clean and understandable. ... Read more

Product Description
The second edition of Perl Cookbook has been fully updated for Perl 5.8, with extensive changes for Unicode support, I/O layers, mod_perl, and new technologies that have emerged since the previous edition of the book. Recipes have been updated to include the latest modules. New recipes have been added to every chapter of the book, and some chapters have almost doubled in size. Covered topic areas include:

• Manipulating strings, numbers, dates, arrays, and hashes
• Pattern matching and text substitutions
• References, data structures, objects, and classes
• Signals and exceptions
• Screen addressing, menus, and graphical applications
• Managing other processes
• Writing secure scripts
• Client-server programming
• Internet applications programming with mail, news, ftp, and telnet
• CGI and mod_perl programming
• Web programming

The recipes are well documented and the examplesaren't too arcane; even beginners will be able to pick up the lessonstaught here. The authors write in relatively easy-to-understandlanguage (for a technical guide). Through this book and its arsenal ofrecipes, you will learn many new things about Perl to help you throughyour toughest projects. The next time you're working on a project at 2a.m., you'll thank yourself for the guidance and direction The PerlCookbook provides. --Doug Beaver ... Read more

Customer Reviews (116)

the book is in great condition
the book was in great condition although it took around 25 days for me to get the book

A model for technical books
The first _Perl Cookbook_ was great.This one is fantastic.

When a programming language, operating system, or the like undergoes significant changes, many publishers of technical books seem to have a policy of making the bare minimum of changes to the current edition of their book on the subject and then publishing it as a whole new edition, thicker and with a higher price tag.O'Reilly, by and large, isn't like that; a new edition of any of their books is more often than not a substantial reworking.

In this mode, the 1st edition of the _Perl Cookbook_ was obviously intended as a companion volume to _Programming Perl_; but the present (2nd) edition could stand alone as both a reference manual to the language in general and a source of ideas and working code to be adapted to almost any project.Most everything in _Programming Perl_ is here too, but described differently by the different authors, in a way that I find often makes more sense.For example, the discussion of OOP in Perl (Chapter 13) is much more straightforward than the treatment of the subject in _Programming Perl_ for a programmer who already has significant experience with another object-oriented language (in my case, C++).

Bottom line: combined with the embarrassment of riches online at[...], this book should give the intermediate- to experienced-level programmer all they could ever need to write great Perl code.

Very good recipies
I liked the book from the minute I started reading. It's written in an easy and understandable manner, and the "cooking recipies" highlight a lot of common questions a typical programmer has when dealing with perl.

Unfortunately it has become a bit dated, and it could do with an update about more modern ways to to things (like e.g. OO with Moose).

A must have for your book shelf
This book will not teach you Perl, but it contains a recipe for many possible problems that you will have to solve while coding in Perl. It is a MUST HAVE for any Perl programmer.

Wonderful Cookbook
With twenty-two chapters spanning a variety of topics, the Perl Cookbook is enough to satiate any Perl programmer. Although not my top recommendation for a beginner, the book does an excellent job of teaching the basics for those who need it. For a more seasoned programmer this book does not disappoint; the topics covered in later chapters are sure to pique your interest. More importantly, however, it ensures that whatever your task may be, it is done with equal weight placed on both speed and practicality.

The book begins by discussing the various ways to manipulate strings, numbers, arrays and hashes. It conveys various examples of many common tasks that serve as a strong base for future Perl programs. The book then shifts attention to the all-powerful regular expressions, providing numerous commonly used (and often forgotten) examples, not to mention the all-encompassing Regular Expression Grab Bag, a three-page spread of expressions that often sit on the tip of your tongue. From here the book begins to pick up pace and diagram proper programming etiquette and design for subroutines, packages, libraries, modules, classes and objects.

My favorite part of the book comes near the end in the form of sockets and client/server communication. The book quickly gave me the answers I needed on how to establish a proper client and server as well as several options and explanations along the way. Instead of simply telling me what I needed to do, the book gave me several options and explained the pros and cons of each (a common theme I enjoyed throughout the book).

In short, this book allowed me to learn the ins and outs of Perl at my own pace, making this a wonderful cookbook for any Perl chef. ... Read more

Product Description
Teach Yourself CGI Programming with Perl 5 in a Week is for the experienced Web page developer who is familiar with basic HTML. The tutorial explains how to use CGI to add interaction to Web sites. The CD includes the source code for all the examples used in the book, along with tools for creating and editing CGI scripts, image maps, forms, and HTML. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Poor CD information...
Book is GOOD but the included CD is difficult to navigate.

To tell you frankly upto now I cannot find where are the sample scripts mentioned in the book.

Novice or pro, you can use this book.
Not the best desktop reference book and not the best straight up learning manual, this book combines strong elements of each.

Once you are comfortable working with CGI and Perl (which this book will either teachyour or assist greatly in achieving) you will still find yourself crackingthe cover often for those things that are right on the tip of your brainbut you just can't quite remember.

With the help of this book, I masteredCGI and was well on the way to my mastery of Perl.It shouldn't be theonly CGI or Perl book in your library, but it is a powerful addition.

Read other reviews carefully.
I brought this book almost 3 years ago and I do not regret it. I wasn't new to CGI, but I think the book is good for both novices and professionals alike.

Many responses criticised this book - read these carefully. Manybooks contain history. Ok so there is a CGI script missing ? Show me a bookthat doesn't. I couldn't believe the webmaster who thinks there is nothingto show how to write a CGI script. Did he read the book ???

Seriously -does anybody considering buying this book think that it's not going to tellyou how to write a CGI script ???

A reader remarks that he has lot's ofexperience of Web Design but this book is not for beginners. But the reviewfrom the beginner says this book is great.

An INCREDIBLE learning resource for beginners!!
The amount of snotty, degrading comments on this book can only lead me to believe that the authors were not able to grasp the simplest of instructions and are taking their anger out on this book.

Quite simply,this is an INCREDIBLE book; well-written, funny, and comprehensive. Notonly do you learn about CGI, you also learn Perl, SSI, some nice HTMLtricks and lots of information about web servers.

The CD includes fullwebsites, tons of scripts, and lots of basic programs you'll need if youplan to set up your own server.

GET THIS BOOK! You won't regret it.*Unless you're too dense to read simple english...*

Poorly designed, rushed, and very bad continuity
I felt this book was good only up to it's halfway point, where it strays from actually teaching you PERL techniques, to other things which have little to no relevance. Not saying that the first half was any good, either- the program sources themselves were riddled with continuity errors.Variable names changed from one reference to another in the same program.The author also took very little time to make sure the reader understoodwhat was going on; too often he would cite code 'snippets' that did exactlywhat they were supposed to do, but then didn't tell you how to fit themtogether to actually make them WORK. I suggest O'Reilley's Animal SeriesCGI book (easily idenifiable in the bookstores with their animals on thecover and black-and-cyan colors) as an alternative to this one. ... Read more

Product Description
Discusses how to build objects for hashes, arrays, scalars, pseudo-hashes, subroutines, regular expressions, or typeglobs, master encapulation, inheritance, and polymorphism, and advanced topics such as operator overloading, tied variables, generic programming, and persistence.Softcover. DLC: Object-oriented programming (Computer Science).Amazon.com Review
Perl has always been a powerful and popular programminglanguage, but with its new object capabilities, it can do evenmore. Written for anyone with a little Perl experience, DamianConway's Object Oriented Perl provides an invaluable guide tovirtually every aspect of object-oriented programming in Perl.

Themost notable thing about Object Oriented Perl is Conway'sexcellent perspective on object-oriented concepts and how they areimplemented in Perl. This book does a remarkable job of cuttingthrough traditional jargon and illustrating how basic object-orienteddesign techniques are handled in Perl. (A useful appendix attests tothe author's wide-ranging knowledge, with a comparison of Smalltalk,Eiffel, C++, and Java with Perl, including a summary ofobject-oriented syntax for each.) This book also features a trulyexcellent review of basic Perl syntax.

Throughout this text, theauthor shows you the basics of solid object design (illustrated usingclasses that model music CDs). Basic concepts like inheritance andpolymorphism get thorough and clear coverage. The book also points outcommon mistakes and provides many tips for navigating the powerful andflexible (yet sometimes tricky) nuances of using Perl objects. Forinstance, Conway shows how to achieve true data encapsulation in Perl(which generally allows calls across modules) as well as its naturalsupport for generic programming techniques.

He also pays specialattention to popular object modules available from CPAN (likeClass::MethodmakerK, which simplifies declaring classes) anddiscusses performance issues and the tradeoff between programmingconvenience and speed often faced by today's Perl developer. Advancedchapters cover a number of techniques for adding persistence andinvoking methods using multiple dispatching.

Filled with syntactictips and tricks, Object Oriented Perl is a sure bet for anyprogrammer who wants to learn how to use Perl objectseffectively. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Perllanguage review, CPAN, Perl objects, 'blessing' and inheritance,polymorphism, Class::Struct and Class::Methodmaker modules, Perl tiesand closures, operator overloading, encapsulation, multiple dispatch,Class::Multimethods, coarse-grained and fine-grained objectpersistence techniques, performance issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (48)

More than objects, but a wee bit long in the tooth now
This is a fine book, but the passage of time has rendered some parts of it less relevant.

As an introduction to object oriented programming, and how to do it in Perl, this is one of the best sources you could learn from. Neither The Alpaca nor The Camel do such a good job.

And it's not just objects that are well covered. You'll also find lucid explanations of closures, type globs, the symbol table and tied variables, all of which can be considered advanced Perl.

Elsewhere, though, the material has not aged so well, superseded by the author's own Perl Best Practices, where some of the recommendations have been reversed, or improved upon ('inside out' classes, for example, as implemented in Class::Std, is a superior development of the flyweight approach mentioned in this book). Some of the material, which concentrates on CPAN modules, and the experimental pseudohashes is not so useful in the light of this - the latter are on course to be removed in Perl 5.10. The sections on building objects using references to things other than hashes (e.g. arrays, regular expressions and subroutines) is clever, but this reader was unconvinced of their utility.

There's also coverage of generics, although in Perl this is not much like generics in C# or Java, basically passing around Perl code as uninterpolated text strings and then evaling it inside a subroutine, where any lexical values are interpolated.

Finally, there are chapters on multimethods (no more elegant or manageable in Perl than other languages that support this feature, alas) and persistence.

The principles discussed remain relevant, and the book is a pleasure to read. However, if you already familiar with OOP and just want to get going as fast as possible, the relevant chapters of Intermediate Perl and Perl Best Practices might be better places to look.

Amazing style and clarity
I am a newbie to perl and I'm writing an application that involves using object-oriented perl. I have not seen any other book that explains difficult concepts with amazing clarity that even a newbie like me can understand. I wish other perl books were written as simple and clear like this one :(

An excellent catch all
I have written a number of modules for Perl over the last 5 years, and I really wish I had bought this book earlier.

It is a mixture of sound coding practices and great examples. I actually bought this after reading Perl Best Practices by the same author, and have not been disappointed.

This is a book written by someone how obviously knows Perl from the inside, and can apply this to real world issues.

The first useful documentation on Perl OOP
This is my favorite Perl book, alongside Advanced Perl Programming.

When I first read it, I was very upset that 3 pages in particular had not simply been inserted into the original Camel book, which I think is one of the most important yet most poorly written programming books ever.

I wish Damien Conway had written Camel and Llama.

A Must-read Advanced Perl Book, the title is misleading
I almost passed this book by, thinking it was a primer into the OO world with Perl. I'm comfortable(if slightly annoyed) writing OO Perl code. What surprised about Conways text was that the book used OO as a premise to instruct the reader on more advanced aspects of Perl; its more an Advanced Perl book than the expected Object Oriented book.

I learned more depth of Perl than I have in years. Perl is a thick and crafty language. Chapter 2, subtitled "A Perl Refresher", was worth the price of admission alone, as he deftly re-hashed Perl features he would use later in the book. The practices and features of Perl he later expanded on in the OO chapters incontinued to impress me.

If you are a Perl programmer, beginner to advanced, this is a must-read book, and a great source of coding inpiration. It made me a better programmer, in Perl and other languages.

This book is was published in 2000, and usually the half-life of most computer texts don't hold up 5 years, but this book certainly does! Also, I just noticed Conway just published "Perl Best Practices" which I am eager to tackle. ... Read more