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Title: Perl For Dummies® by Paul E. Hoffman ISBN: 0764504606 Publisher: Hungry Minds, Inc Pub. Date: 27 November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.93
Rating: 4
Summary: A great place to start in Perl.
Comment: As always, you have to be very careful with the 'Dummies' line of programming books, as most of them turn out to be terrible. This one however, is terrific. It did a great job of simplifying the sometimes arcane syntax of Perl, and explaining (at least at a beginner level) how some of the Perl features differ on Unix systems and Win32 systems, and even on Mac systems.
No, the book won't teach you everything; a Dummies book shouldn't be held up to that. When I was done with this one, I moved into the O'Reilly books to go further with Perl. This book will get you going in Perl much better than the O'Reilly Perl books of fame ('Learning Perl' and 'Programming Perl'), though. Popular opinion says everyone should be able to learn Perl from scratch from the O'Reilly books and that's just not true. They are colder, more rigid texts that will do fine when one is more advanced with Perl.
I've only come across a couple of great 'Dummies' programming books, and this is one of them ('Active Server Pages for Dummies' was the other). Get over yourself - you're not too cool for a Dummies book. Buy this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: A very good place to start
Comment: For those who frown upon Dummies books, you should ease up a bit and give this one some serious thought. Perl for Dummies is strictly for beginners. When I say beginners, I mean people with absolutely no programming experience in any language. I compared this book to Learning Perl and found that Learning Perl is written primarily for seasoned non-Perl programmers who are trying to learn Perl for the first time. If you are like me, with no programming know how, this is a more appropriate beginning. It explains such simplicities as scalars, arrays, adding and removing list elements, conditionals, etc. It even goes (lightly) into CGI and regular expressions. It does so in a language which understands that the reader is a "dummy" when it comes to programming and most importantly, it keeps it simple. Simplicity is the primary teaching strategy when dealing with a topic at the novice level, and Perl for Dummies does this well. The weakness of this book is that it does not do a good job of teaching you how to install Perl from the CD provided. In fact, the instructions provided were downright wrong. I had to ask a Perl programmer how to install and run Perl programs on my Windows 98 system. Another weakness, if you can call it that with a book at this level, is that it lacks program examples which would allow me to see what exactly can Perl do in the real world, such as system administration in a UNIX environment. I recommend this book as the starting point, with Learning Perl and Elements of Programming Perl as your next logical step. After you have mastered these books should you go on the Programming Perl and the Perl Cookbook.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Book!
Comment: I bought this book hoping to expand my knowledge of Internet programming. Having never read a Perl tutorial before in my life, I was clinging to the concept of luck that I would come out with a great book rather than one to take the hassle of returning.
Not only did I come out with a great book, but I came out with a great introduction, explanation, and tutorial of the Perl language, but also a VERY useful reference source. I would never have regretted purchasing this book for an instant. The author covers many of the necessary aspects of the language thoroughly, leaving me with a clear understanding of this great programming tool.
The only part that could have been covered better was DBM and relational databases, although I know that that was not one of the targets of this book as a tutorial, it would have come in handy as a reference.
I strongly recommend this to any one looking for a solid introduction/reference to this great language, and also to any one with previous experience in Perl. It comes in great as a reference, and you might even learn something new!
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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 |
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Title: Perl by Example (3rd Edition) by Ellie Quigley ISBN: 0130282510 Publisher: Pearson Higher Education Pub. Date: 07 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
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Title: JavaScript For Dummies by Emily A. Vander Veer ISBN: 0764506331 Publisher: For Dummies Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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Title: UNIX for Dummies by John R. Levine, Margaret Levine Young ISBN: 0764504193 Publisher: For Dummies Pub. Date: 09 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.99 |
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Title: Programming Perl (3rd Edition) by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant ISBN: 0596000278 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: July, 2000 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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