Perl books - which one to get

[richardfangnail]

I was reading Elizabeth Castro's Perl book and I'm beginning to think
it is terrible though I could be wrong. She spent an entire chapter on
making a form in HTML (using an example of a furniture online store)
and then later switched to a different scenario. What is the best book
about Perl?

 

[Tim Shoppa]

I was reading Elizabeth Castro's Perl book and I'm beginning to think
it is terrible though I could be wrong. She spent an entire chapter on
making a form in HTML (using an example of a furniture online store)
and then later switched to a different scenario. What is the best book
about Perl?

Even though I do CGI stuff (and a lot of other stuff too) in Perl, I
think all the Perl-CGI books (of which Castro's is one of many) are
awful. Maybe I just hate reading about that stuff. I've never seen a
good one. But like I said I'm heavily biased towards NOT WANTING to
read about it .

My favorite books: The Camel book, and _Object Oriented Perl_ by Damian
Conway. Both have very useful (similar but not identical!) perspectives
on programming at large - I may not always agree with every philosophy
they espouse, but overall they have the right attitude.

Tim.

 

[usenet]

I was reading Elizabeth Castro's Perl book and I'm beginning to think
it is terrible

That was my first introduction to Perl CGI (at a time I knew very
little about Perl). I found the book helpful - for a total noob. But I
outgrew it when I wrote my first program (but the book did get me off
to a good start).

I found Chapter 12 of Simon Cozen's book informative, and you can read
it on-line for free:

http://learn.perl.org/library/beginning_perl/3145_Chap12.pdf

Of course, there's "The Official Guide to Programming with CGI.pm" by
Lincoln Stein (the author of the CGI module), an old but reliable
resource (and at five bucks used on Amazon, the price is right).

 

[Ben Bullock]

I was reading Elizabeth Castro's Perl book and I'm beginning to think
it is terrible though I could be wrong. She spent an entire chapter on
making a form in HTML (using an example of a furniture online store)
and then later switched to a different scenario. What is the best book
about Perl?

I have two copies of "programming perl" (the "camel book"). One is the first
edition from 1991 and one is the third edition from 2000. Generally speaking
the books are written in a way which is almost incomprehensible to read
sequentially, but strangely, after you try to write some Perl script, then
get stuck, then come back to the book, you often find that it contains the
answers to the problem you were trying to solve. In other words, the book is
very deep. Even more strangely, sometimes the old first edition is more
useful than the third edition, or you have to look up something in both
books to understand it. I don't think I will ever buy another Perl book,
anyway.

 

[Ben Morrow]

I have two copies of "programming perl" (the "camel book"). One is the first
edition from 1991 and one is the third edition from 2000. Generally speaking
the books are written in a way which is almost incomprehensible to read
sequentially, but strangely, after you try to write some Perl script, then
get stuck, then come back to the book, you often find that it contains the
answers to the problem you were trying to solve.

Weird... I read the third edition straight through, knowing very little
Perl, and found it completely readable... I guess it just depends how
your brain works .

Ben

 

[John Bokma]

I have two copies of "programming perl" (the "camel book"). One is the
first edition from 1991 and one is the third edition from 2000.
Generally speaking the books are written in a way which is almost
incomprehensible to read sequentially, but strangely, after you try to
write some Perl script, then get stuck, then come back to the book,
you often find that it contains the answers to the problem you were
trying to solve. In other words, the book is very deep. Even more
strangely, sometimes the old first edition is more useful than the
third edition, or you have to look up something in both books to
understand it. I don't think I will ever buy another Perl book,
anyway.

You might have a peek at:

Perl Cookbook
Learning Perl Objects, References, & Modules

Some time ago I got Higher Order Perl, but only have read the first 30
pages or so.

 

[Emmanuel Florac]

Le Thu, 25 May 2006 04:03:01 +0000, John Bokma a écrit :

Perl Cookbook
Learning Perl Objects, References, & Modules

Yes, this one is fantastically useful. It provides solutions to the most
common tricky problems you meet while programming. A real life-saver...

--
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
J. Keats.

Ah! Singe débotté, hisse un jouet fort et vert!
Marcel Bénabou.

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Weird... I read the third edition straight through, knowing very little
Perl, and found it completely readable... I guess it just depends how
your brain works .

Or how much general programming experience you have. The content of the
Camel approximately equals 'perldoc', doesn't it?

 

[Tim Shoppa]

Hi John


This has been afaik nowadays (03/2006) reissued
and updated under the title "Intermediate Perl",
see: http://www.cheap-software-megastore.com/index.php?target=desc&progid=6996


The two Volumes of "Advanced Perl Programming"
(both are completely different books):
V.1: 1997 by Srinivasam (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565922204/)
V.2: 2005 by Cozens (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596004567/)

are worth a look too, in my opinion. The first
is 'topically' better (imho), has some errors
but corrections are available.

I own all those books but - in my opinion - they were only transiently
useful. Now that I've been doing Perl for 4 or 5 years, I find that I
haven't opened any of those up since the first couple of months.

They are sort-of worthwhile in providing sample frameworks/scripts in a
cookbook sort of way (e.g. grab a dozen lines from here, put it
together with a couple lines from there, and you've got a meal!)

The Camel book is a fixture.

Conway's book _Object Oriented Perl_ doesn't get opened often as I'm
programming, but is useful as a perspective on both my programs/modules
and the CPAN modules I regularly use.

The documentation for CPAN modules is often of the flavor ("here's a
short example program to get you started") that is superior to the
"intermediate" and "advanced" books. The abstractions used by CPAN
modules are a very valuable educational tool in themselves. The fact
that there is no single abstraction model is incredibly rich and useful
although I'm sure it frustrates a lot of purists. (Reminds me of a
thread in a different newsgroup, "Keep your hands out of my abstraction
layer!"). Programming is so much more interesting when you can delve
into the abstraction layer as you want without a compiler slapping your
hands. Many of the most popular CPAN modules have evolved their
abstractions over the years and this is incredibly interesting from a
codesmith's viewpoint.

Tim.

 

[cartercc]

The best 'book' is the documentation that comes with the Perl install,
particularly the Windows Active State Perl, that you can access with
your browser.

This documentation is good both for basic orientation, quick fixes, and
detailed low level reading. It probably isn't enough to get a complete
beginner started. I think that Learning Perl is good, and Diane Zak
wrote a short book on Perl/CGI that IMO is top rate, not necessarily
for Perl but certainly for a good walk through of Perl syntax and
logical structures, that is, if you read each chapter and do ALL the
exercises you will come away with enough to allow you to use the Perl
documentation.

If you want to spend Big Bucks and get a Big Product, get the Deitel &
Deitel How to Program Perl book. This is a heavy duty, industrial
version of Learning Perl. You will pay for it with both money and time,
but if money and time are not problems, it certainly does the job.

CC

 

[John Bokma]

Hi John


This has been afaik nowadays (03/2006) reissued
and updated under the title "Intermediate Perl",
see:
http://www.cheap-software-megastore.com/index.php?target=desc&progid=69
96

Thanks. Funny, I wrote a few days ago that IIRC the book was getting a new
name. Didn't know it had already happened, thanks for the info. Although
the price of the ebook is very attractive, is there a hard copy coming?

The two Volumes of "Advanced Perl Programming"
(both are completely different books):
V.1: 1997 by Srinivasam
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565922204/) V.2: 2005 by Cozens
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596004567/)

are worth a look too, in my opinion. The first
is 'topically' better (imho), has some errors
but corrections are available.

I have the first version, but it's in the Netherlands. I recall that some
of the style is a bit outdated. But that doesn't affect the ideas in the
book. (I have the same with HOP, the coding style is quite weird to me,
and some things I wouldn't even think about of doing )

 

[John Bokma]

[ Intermediate Perl]

Yes, I think it has been available for several weeks.
I ordered one through my local book dealer (from
Germany) and got it within 5 days.

There is another one to come:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596526741/

(which is "Perl Hacks : Tips & Tools for Programming, Debugging, and
Surviving")

based on the authors, I want this book

Ok, will add them to my wish list. Got one Perl book that way already
(HOP) in exchange for some Perl help :-D.

 

[Tad McClellan]

Thanks. Funny, I wrote a few days ago that IIRC the book was getting a new
name. Didn't know it had already happened, thanks for the info. Although
the price of the ebook is very attractive, is there a hard copy coming?

The hard copy has been around for a couple of months already:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/intermediateperl/

 

[John Bokma]

[Intermediate Perl]

The hard copy has been around for a couple of months already:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/intermediateperl/

One of the disadvantages of living where I live is that there is no big
bookshop that has mostly English books :-( So it's easy for me to miss new
books.