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Title: Learning Perl (2nd Edition) by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Christiansen, Tom Christiansen, Larry Wall ISBN: 1565922840 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: June, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21
Rating: 3
Summary: Learning Perl...
Comment: In short, this is a good book. I'd recommend it to anyone wishing to start learning Perl.
However, it's not entirely easy to read, but then again show me a computer book that is. Also like other programming books, this couldn't have been edited! No way!! It's full of awful mistakes in code and grammar!! Believe me, when you're trying to figure some examples on a Monday morning at 5 am, the mistakes don't help!!!
On the whole, the author has done well with this book. I must say though, it would have been nice if the book referenced the Windows platform more often. The author keeps going on about how easily portable Perl is, but, didn't tell us the equivalent way of doing some programs on Windows. As you can imagine, some of the examples I simply couldn't do.
Like all other computer books I've picked up, this one recommends you to read others... why oh why oh why can't there be one massive super computer bible of a book??? Perhaps, I'll write one that is edited!!!
Rating: 5
Summary: A retrospective from a Unix user and casual programmer
Comment: I've been a Unix user for seven+ years, and have some programming experience, although I am by no means really knowledgable about either. When I entered my most recent job, I needed to learn Perl fast, and so I used this book to help me get started.
From a self-teaching perspective, I found this book to be exactly what I needed. I'll admit that the first chapter (a general description of the Perl language) was not very helpful, but I found the division of the rest of the book by small pieces of the syntax (scalars, arrays, hashes, regular functions, i/o, etc.) to suit my needs, which tended to be along the lines of: I need to do x right now. I learned the easy stuff really quickly, and I still use the book as a constant reference.
Now, it is just a beginner's text, so it is not an ideal complete reference, and you won't learn anything particularly nifty. However, if you need to both learn how to program and actually do some programming at the same time (i.e. not in a class-room setting), Learning Perl can be a wonderful text.
Rating: 4
Summary: A stroll through mud
Comment: I picked up Learning Perl with very little programming experience (only having completed a compulsory Visual Basic course in high school), and found it easy to read and understand.
The first chapter, A stroll Through Perl, is perhaps the biggest flaw in the book. Rather than introducing the capabilities of Perl (which I think is what the author's intended), it bogs the new reader down in detail and seems to set forth an avalanche of cryptic code at you. It was so bad that, thinking that Chapter 1 was an indication of the rest of the book (ie it was all too cryptic and meant for seasoned programmers), I set the book aside for a few months.
I came back to the book when a friend of mine picked it up, and, after skimming over Chapter 1, was pleasantly suprised. The rest of the book is easy to read and understand, though at times a little dense for the new programmer, and immediately useful. The examples are good illustrations of implementation ideas for concepts described in a chapter, and the excercises at the end of each chapter are good indications of what you've learnt. The book introduces new concepts smoothly and quickly integrates them into existing material, and culminates in an especially interesting and useful chapter on CGI (which is really what I wanted to use Perl for).
Overall, it's a great book, even for people who are new to programming: with a little dedication you'll be able to blaze through the chapters and become proficient at Perl basics. Some organisational errors let it down and make the introductory pages unjustifiably daunting for those new to programming, but other than that, it was a very satisfying and self-contained tutorial for Perl users.
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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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Title: Perl Cookbook by Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington ISBN: 1565922433 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: CGI Programming with Perl by Gunther Birznieks, Scott Guelich, Shishir Gundavaram ISBN: 1565924193 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition by Jeffrey, E. F. Friedl ISBN: 0596002890 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Advanced Perl Programming by Sriram Srinivasan ISBN: 1565922204 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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