Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days (2nd Edition) by Laura Lemay, Richard Colburn, Robert Kiesling ISBN: 0-672-32035-5 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 31 May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.99 (69 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I think that lot of people need perspective...
Comment: ...when buying books. If the book says "Teach Yourself Perl in 21 days", any advanced topics that it covers is gravy. Obviously it's a beginners book. Some of the complaints I've read are just silly. "Don't buy the book because Lemay got a math formula wrong" (if you know what the right formula is, great. She's not supposed to teach you algebra too!), "don't buy the book because when you're done learning everything that the book has to offer (which is substantial) it won't turn into a super advanced book" (go buy one of those 2000 page tomes that tries to please everyone and only succeeds in breaking your back). No book can please everyone. However, if the book clearly lets you know that it's a beginners book, and you insist on complaining that that is what it is,... duh?
I orginally bought this book because I had a need to write a script to connect to a db. I found out that perl could talk to dbs, so I decided that this would be a cool way to learn perl. So I tried to find a perl book that talked about connection to dbs. Unfortunately, the few books out there that talked about this assumed you were an expert in perl and had no time to teach it to you. So I realized that I needed a good, quick foundation in perl.
I dusted of my perl for dummies book. Now this is a true beginners book. Way too lightweight! This book will not prepare you for perl code that you'd see in the "real world". The important part is, THIS BOOK WILL! The greatest thing that an author can do for you is give you a spoon so that you can feed yourself. This book does that.
By the way, this book has a lot of topics that I haven't seen in "advanced" books. Don't think that it's a lightweight. The author does cover enough material so you can educate yourself afterwards. I probably have about 40+ technical books, and this is one of the better ones.
As someone who makes a living developing web apps, I need to be able to learn new stuff QUICKLY and get projects done. This author helped me greatly in this regard.
Rating: 4
Summary: good beginner's book, too many typos
Comment: I knew nothing about Perl and bought this book because other Amazon reviewers said it was good for newbies, and I found that to be true as well. In contrast, Randal Schwartz's "Learning Perl" book, which I flipped through in the bookstore, is just too hard for a complete newbie. However, the book falls a little short when addressing Perl's more advanced functions and features. The "Going Deeper" section found in each chapter is easily the most annoying aspect of the book. In each "Going Deeper" section, the author touches on some interesting and advanced features of Perl without going into any depth or providing code examples. Get this book to learn Perl but get something more advanced so that you can actually use Perl for something useful.
Also, there were way too many typos in this book. It's difficult to get rid of typos, but a programming book must be free of typos in its code examples otherwise the reader does not know whether his programs are crashing because of his own mistakes or the book's typos. Some reviewers state that some typos are inevitable in any book with lots of code examples. I disagree. Anyone providing code examples should test and debug it before publishing it. I wouldn't want my name on a book which had buggy code because of typos, so I don't see why any professional author would do the same.
I went to the book's website to list some of the typos but aside from the home page, the rest of the website has not been constructed. Hopefully, the author will get around to finishing the website so that readers can post where typos can be found and the author can provide errata pages as well as correcting mistakes for the second edition.
Rating: 3
Summary: It just didn't work for me
Comment: This book is not helpful for the newbies. Not only do some of the scripts not work, but the way Perl is explained in this book, it just doesn't make enough sense. I learned more from online tutorials that were perhaps 3 pages long than I learned in 15 pages of one chapter of this book. I usually pick things up quite easily, so it must be the book that is confusing.
At least two of the script examples given in Chapters 1-8 had typos in them, and not enough explanation for someone that doesn't know much to figure out what. I am unfortunately going to have to give up on this book to learn Perl and turn to the internet... too bad I spent $35 for the book. I don't recommend this book to anyone except perhaps someone that already knows Perl.
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) by Clinton Pierce ISBN: 0672322765 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 21 Days by Jonathan A. Watt, Andrew H. Watt, Jinjer Simon, Jonathan A Watt ISBN: 0672322978 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 29 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
 |
Title: Programming Perl (3rd Edition) by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant ISBN: 0596000278 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
 |
Title: Sams Teach Yourself CGI in 24 Hours by Richard Colburn ISBN: 0672324040 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
 |
Title: Learning Perl, Third Edition by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix ISBN: 0596001320 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
