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Interesting in parts, outdated in others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
(Pearson Education) A text focusing on the methods and alternatives for designed TCP/IP-based client/server systems and advanced techniques for specialized applications with Perl. A guide examining a collection of the best third party modules in the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network Softcover. DLC: Perl (Computer program language).Amazon.com Review
"Network programming"--the term had a distinct meaning once, but now it begs the question, "Is there another kind?" That's why Lincoln Stein's Network Programming with Perl is valuable. It shows how one of the world's top Perl authorities brings the language to bear on problems that require communication among computers, showing that you may not have to resort to Java as soon as you may have thought to meet a networking requirement. What's more, Stein doesn't assume you have a lot of Perl expertise. An intermediate-level familiarity with the language should enable you to understand the examples in the book and follow its classic code-and-commentary structure.

Stein presents full, working scripts, calling attention to particularly interesting lines and passages by repeating them in the text. If a program makes use of an unusual or previously undiscussed function (and lots of them do, because one of the author's missions is to introduce the contents of specialized libraries), its syntax and legal parameters will be documented and a concise statement of its behavior provided. The example programs are the best part of this book, though. As the problems get more complicated, it's fun to watch Stein solve them with efficient, attractive code. Unless you're a really experienced professional, you'll be able to study the examples in this book and learn a lot. --David Wall

Topics covered:

• Perl function libraries and techniques that allow programs to interact with resources over a network
• IO::Socket library
• Net::FTP library
• Net::Telnet library
• Net::SMTP library
• Chat problems
• Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) issues
• Markup-language parsing
• Internet Protocol (IP) broadcasting and multicasting

Customer Reviews (15)

Must have for any network engineer
As a network engineer, there are certain things I need to get out of the network quickly, without buying loads of software packages. This book gives you all the tools necessary to create your own scripts for managing, gathering information from, and tweaking your network. I never let this book leave my side. Couple the scripts in this book with some PHP/Java/HTML knowledge and you can write your own internal tools (as I have) or add more functionality to open source tools that are out there (as I also have).

I am happy with this book
I recently took a perl programming class as part of a masters degree program in software engineering. We used the standard camel book (that I also bought through Amazon). Since the course did not really do much with general network programming and since I wanted this type of capability around the office, I purchased this book. In combination with the skills I picked up in the course, I have been using the information in this book for putting together scripts for testing web and ftp capabilities of the product that I support. I have been making good use of it.

I would recommend this book, along with the camel book, if you are creating perl scripts for testing/using network connected products.

Excellent book
If you write a lot of network utilities in Perl this book is a must-have.

It's very well-written, with lots of sample code and a detailed explanation of how it all works. More importantly, Stein goes into great detail on the concepts the network programmer needs to understand, and why things need to be done a certain way. There is really a lot of valuable information here, and it's all quite well-organized and readable.

A very good computer book.

Excellent
This book is excellent. This is one of very few books that the author really takes time, has a good plan to write a book and have good understanding of the subject.

I read many computer books that are just repetitive so it can make the books thick enough to look like a 'good book' (May be this is what US raaders like). I try my best to avoid those books. Those books do not say much in hundreds of pages.

But this book is not that kind of book. Every pages are worth to read. It is quite easy to follow. (I do know a bit of TCP/IP from reading other books before I read this book.) E.g. Stevens TCP/IP books. Unfortunately he died and he won't be able to update those great books.

Some authors are not professional, they just copy here and there. Then they put everything together. Those are terrible books to read. Those terrible books explain some simple concept again and again and take up hundreds of pages that can be done in half of volume. It is not just wasting the readers time (time is money) but also wasting the resource (trees)! Even most college textbooks are that way. Sometimes it is even worst since they know you won't haave much choices!

I seldom to give 5 stars. This book does deserve 5 stars.

You will enjoy this one if you like networking.

One of my favorite Perl books.
This is one of my favorite Perl books. It really serves what it says it will. It covers a great amount of Perl coding, but like the title says, goes into a lot of networking code, functions and so on. For Perl network programming, you really should have and use this book. ... 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
Meets the growing academic market need for Perl books.Attempts to target experienced programmers whether that experience comes from professional programming or from the first two courses in a degree program in computer science.Softcover. DLC: Perl (Computer program language) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great for people who already know how to program
This book is great for those who already know how to program in C or C++.I am a C++ programmer and I needed to quickly learn the basics of Perl and this book was great.It's short, concise, and to the point - it got me up and running really fast.Within a few days, I was writing useful small scripts and ready to move on to some more advanced materials, including the O'reilly books on Perl.

I think only one addition would make this book even better: have a list of resources (other books, web sites) at the end of each chapter to find more information about certain topics.For instance, the chapter on CGI programming can point readers to Lincoln Stein's book on CGI.pm for more detailed information.

Mediocre at Best
We are using this book in my Perl class, and the general consensus is that this book is mediocre at best. Much of this comes from the fact that we are required to do the exercises at the back of the book, which, among other things, sometimes require you know information that has not yet been covered. Also some of the chapters do a poor job at explaining things, especially the functions chapter, in which even the examples in the chapter did not work when compiled. In its defense(short as it may be), however, the fact that it is short and concise made Perl more easy to handle.

To the point
I first started learning perl with the Camel/Llama books from O'Reilly -but did not like the style [or prehaps I lack a sense of humor?] and gaveup.

A 'Little Book on Perl' is just that. I skimmed over it for 30mins onthe bus each morning and after 3 days felt I knew enough to throw away myawk and shell scripts and use perl in anger. This being a small book is agreat advantage for someone familar with programming - you get to know thebasic features of the language fast. There are however some irritations -the opening example script has typos, and some of the page numbers areincorrect - my copy has the debugger chapter included twice. Still it isthe best perl book I have seen.

A Little Book on Perl - R.W. Sebesta, ISBN: 0139279555
I first started learning perl with the Camel/Llama books from O'Reilly -but did not like the style [or prehaps I lack a sense of humor?] and gaveup.

A 'Little Book on Perl' is just that. I skimmed over it for 30mins onthe bus each morning and after 3 days felt I knew enough to throw away myawk and shell scripts and use perl in anger. This being a small book is agreat advantage for someone familar with programming - you get to know thebasic features of the language fast. There are however some irritations -the opening example script has typos, and some of the page numbers areincorrect - my copy has the debugger chapter included twice. Still it isthe best perl book I have seen.

Good - despite the typos
I first started learning perl with the Camel/Llama books from O'Reilly -but did not like the style [or prehaps I lack a sense of humor?] and gaveup.

A 'Little Book on Perl' is just that. I skimmed over it for 30mins onthe bus each morning and after 3 days felt I knew enough to throw away myawk and shell scripts and use perl in anger. This being a small book is agreat advantage for someone familar with programming - you get to know thebasic features of the language fast. There are however some irritations -the opening example script has typos, and some of the page numbers areincorrect - my copy has the debugger chapter included twice. Still it isthe best perl book I have seen. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent resource for therapists
I am Anne Teachworth, MA, Director of the Gestalt Institute of New Orleans/New York, author of WHY WE PICK THE MATES WE DO, and a contributor to this book.My chapter is entitled THREE COUPLES TRANSFORMED and is anaccount of the amazingly fast results achieved with Laura and Mike. In onlytwelve sessions, using my new Gestalt based approach, calledPsychogenetics, we uncovered and successfully reprogrammed the hiddenIntrojected Interactional Patterns (IIPs) imprinted in this couple'sunconscious from their previous generations. Their sessions focused on theInner Couple relationship examples demonstrated by their parents in theirearly childhood and the similarities to problems Laura and Mike hadhad.

A LIVING LEGACY is a major help in understanding what effectivetherapy is all about. You will enjoy the variety of subjects and excerptsfrom actual Gestalt based counseling sessions with clients and be able touse the insights in your own life or private counseling practice. ... 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

Customer Reviews (1)

Gestalt, eyewitness to therapy
Awsome book! it will change your life! it brings your attention to things that you dont even realize is an issue... until you read the book. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of readily reproducible molecular techniques and related in vitro/in vivo model systems can be used to explore the causes of autoimmunity, as well as how best it may be regulated. There are methods to assess immunological and biochemical pathways relevant for pathogenesis and to establish and assess a variety of autoimmune diseases, including arthritis, lupus, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, myocarditis, thyroiditis, scleroderma, uveitis, and vitiligo. ... 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
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
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

It’s Ida’s first day of school. She carries her new lunch box and a long, blue string with her special friend Dotty attached to it. A big, colorfully spotted pal with horns, Dotty just happens to be invisible. On that first day of school, Ida and Dotty find out there are plenty of other imaginary friends in attendance. But as the year passes and fewer and fewer imaginary friends come to class, Ida begins to wonder if Dotty is welcome at school anymore . . .

Perceptive and warmly funny, with charming art from exciting illustrator Julia Denos, Dotty is a celebration of the power of friendship and imagination.

Customer Reviews (9)

You're Never too Old
Dotty's delightful illustrations and endearing text will support kids still in need of comfort objects, even when the world says imaginary friends aren't cool.But more than that, it sends a subtle message to all that it's cool to be who you are.Dotty is a great small group read aloud (the illustrations are too special to be lost within a fist-time full class read) and ought to be on the suggested reading list of every K-2 teacher and librarian.The slightly retro illustrations with help keep current fashion trends from outdating the text, thus making this a great choice a teacher's classroom investment.I hope this one stays on the shelves and moves into many reprints; it's a treasure.

What you see is what you get
Seems to me that picture books get split into very particular genres pretty quickly.I actually keep lists of them on my computer at work, depending on how many requests I receive.There are the Bully picture books.The Dinosaur picture books.The People in Our Community picture books.And then there are two genres that sometimes get split up and sometimes merge together.These would be the Invisible Friend picture books and the Starting School picture books.Now you'll see a fair amount of bringing your blankie to school picture books out there ("OwenOwen" being the best example).And you'll see more than a few anxiety-ridden titles.Imaginary friends at school books are rarer, though you do see them occasionally (the Kevin Henkes title "Jessica" comes immediately to mind).Now with "Dotty" we've a title that takes two different ideas, combines them, and comes up with a way of showing that putting away childish things is a selective process.

On the first day of school Ida takes care to bring with her a new lunchbox, a pair of striped leggings, and her imaginary friend Dotty.Dotty resembles nothing so much as a benign combination of cow and toadstool.At school, Ida discovers that many of her classmates have similar companions.There are Max's twin sea serpents, Benny's razor-toothed R.O.U.S., and Katya's doodle-brought-to-life Keekoo.As the school year progresses, however, Ida discovers that more and more of her schoolmates have stopped bringing their friends to class.By the time spring comes around Ida is on the receiving end of the now worldly Katya's teasing and she reacts angrily.The two girls write "apology" notes, and then Ida has a discussion with her teacher Ms. Raymond.After promising that she'll explain to Dotty that pushing people is inappropriate, Ida spots a red leash belonging to her teacher, not dissimilar at all from Dotty's leash.It may well be that special friends are the kinds you keep with you always.

Essentially, in this book you're looking at the changes a kid goes through in the course of a single year of school.With that in mind, Perl's choices are pretty interesting.For example, Ida's friend Katya begins the book with a tiny imaginary friend that swings on her braids.Later she gets a haircut and keeps the creature in her pocket secretly.That haircut sort of marks a rite of passage for Katya.The growing out of imaginary friends is shown in different ways. I would have liked some clarification on what grade Ida was in, of course.This seems to be her first day of school ever, which would mean that this is Kindergarten.Still, these kids look older than Kindergarteners, and the pseudo-apologetic notes written near the end are more 1st or 2nd grade material.

Take note that the illustrations by Denos look patently simple but have details that the five-year-old inside of me appreciated.I liked that two out of three of Ida's lunchboxes featured images that are not always associated with girls in books (a dinosaur and outer space).In fact, you'll find that the image of Ida waking up on the title page shows drawn pictures of a dino on the wall and a toy dino and space rabbit (the third lunchbox displays a rabbit) sitting on the windowsill.I liked that Gert, Ms. Raymond's own invisible friend, actually appears early in the book in two scenes, hiding.I liked that Ms. Raymond's neck scarf matches Gert's furry coat, and that Ida is usually seen wearing dots or big round buttons to match Dotty.The publication page's explanation of the Denos technique is amusing, saying that "The illustrations in this book were made with brush ink and a bit of Photoshop here and there."Love that "a bit".An interesting choice of words.

The text was choice.At no point, I should note, are the words "imaginary friend" uttered in the course of the story.The story takes the creatures that come to the school for granted.I found myself wondering at what point the child readers would understand that Dotty was an imaginary friend.Later, would they recognize that Dotty hitting Katya was actually Ida hitting Katya?This may be giving kids too little credit, of course.It's entirely plausible that a kid reading this book is going to recognize that the reality of the situation (i.e. children bringing strange creatures to school) doesn't work and that therefore these must be imaginary friends.Still and all, I'd love to take a poll to see how many parents reading this book to their kids, stop and say clearly, "Now this is a book about an IMAGINARY FRIEND" for the "benefit" of their children's understanding versus those who just let the text stand for itself.

To a certain extent this book reminded me of "Yellowbelly and Plum Go to School" by Nathan Hale.The obvious difference, of course, is that while the monsters in this book are figments of the children's imaginations, in "Yellowbelly" they're all too real.The pairing of Perl and Denos comes off as particularly strong here.One can hope that they'll be put together on similar books in the future.Particularly if those books have the same mix of sweetness and wisdom as you'll find in the beloved "Dotty".A charmer of a book.

For ages 4-8.

Buy this book if a teacher has made a difference for you!
I read this book last night to my 5 year old son who is interested in reading Star Wars books only (except for 93 In My Family, also by this author).He loved it, much to my delight b/c I did too.The story is just great and the illustrations are superb. Love the way both Dotty and her teacher are portrayed.An absolute gem!

I Love Me Some Dotty
Dotty is one of those picture books that I couldn't help but want to read at first glance. When Ida goes to school, her imaginary friend Dotty goes with her.


"At morning meeting Ms. Raymond counted noses. Ten, eleven twelve. Ida frowned. She patted Dotty reassuringly. Thirteen, she silently added. "


In the beginning all of Ida's classmates have imaginary friends as well. Soon Dotty is the only one left. Ida is tease for still having Dotty. She even gets into a fight with a classmate. In the end Ida's teacher, Ms Raymond revelation makes Ida feel much better about still having Dotty.


Deno's colorful illustrations are a perfect match for Perl's wonderful text. Dotty is a great story that features a diverse cast of characters. Its one of my favorite picture books of the year.

A Tale of True (imaginary) Friendship
Returning to school after summer holidays is always hard.But nothing eases those back-to-school jitters more than taking along a tried and true friend for support and comfort, even if it's an imaginary friend. Which is just what Ida does. She's had Dotty, a big dinosaur looking creature with red spots, for forever and takes her just about everywhere, especially to school. But it's no big deal, because all of her friends have imaginary tag-a-longs too. Max has his twin imaginary pals, Pete and Repeat, Benny has Spike, and Katya never goes anywhere without Keekoo going with her.

But when the kids return to school again after winter holidays, most of Ida's friends show up without their make-believe sidekicks, deeming it "too babyish" to have them in their lives anymore. Pretty soon, Ida is the only one left bringing her fantasy pal to school, and begins to feel ashamed in still believing in Dotty. At first, Ida tries to shoo Dotty away as well. But with a little help from Ida's teacher, she learns that you're never too old to believe in the magic of a true friend--even an imaginary one.

Lyrical prose by Erica S. Perl, and whimsical illustrations by Julia Denos make Dotty the kind of story you'll want to read over and over again, especially when you too need a reminder of the power of using your imagination.
--Reviewed by Jill MacKenzie
... Read more

Product Description
Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture is the third volume of The Best of the Perl Journal, compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of The Perl Journal, Jon Orwant. In this series, we've taken the very best (and still relevant) articles published in TPJ over its 5 years of publication and immortalized them into three volumes. The 47 articles included in this volume are simply some of the best Perl articles ever written on the subjects of games, diversions, and the unique culture of this close-knit community, by some of the best Perl authors and coders. Games, Diversions & Perl Culture focuses on entertaining topics that make Perl users such fanatics about the language. You'll find all of the playful features TPJ offered over the years, including the Obfuscated Perl Contests, Perl Quiz Shows, humor articles, and renowned one-line recipes. The book also contains a panoply of quirky applications of Perl, including genetic algorithms, home automation, music programming, and an entire section on natural language processing.This anthology is an unmatched compendium of Perl lore. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Some jewels and a lot of fluff
This is a tome at 600 pages. But at 48 chapters each one is really small. This is because the book is actually a set of articles. Some of the articles are fantastic and very helpful. Specifically between 18 and 23, which cover text handling for stuff like smart searching and internationalization. Other chapters, like 37, which is about Perl Haikus, are really for the hardcore Perl lover.

For the average Perl user, check it out to make sure that you are getting the content you need. For the hardcore, you were going to by this book anyway, so why are you reading reviews. ;-)

Casual & fun
This book is a grab bag of fun Perl uses.The obfuscated Perl contests are completely mind-bending - it's amazing what people can do with this language. The games material is a little light, but overall a good read.

High on "Diversions", Low on "Games"
First let me state that, as with most O'Reilly books, there is nothing wrong with the writing in here.Topic coverage at least goes deep enough on each article to let you decide if you want to go any further on your own.Some articles mearly cover CPAN module and there are better places to get that kind of material, I think.Coverage of Obfuscation is pretty substantial, if you enjoy that sort of thing (I don't).Still the articles themselves are solid.

Unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy the book, in spite of the above.Honestly, I think it's the title.I'm a big gamer who plays pretty much everything and I bought this book expecting to get some gaming content for my favorite programming language.(Note the first word of the title, "Games".)If that's what your looking for too, look on, it's not here.The book has four chapters covering game related material.The first mainly covers the game tool modules available from CPAN and that is sadly slim pickins.The second describes a contest the Perl Journal held and was one of my two favorite chapters in the whole book.The third is all about the Perl Z-Machine "rezrov", which is at least a little informative.The fourth is How to Build a TK Card Game.That's it, for gaming material, be warned.

The book mainly focuses on random aspects of linguistic theory, including NPL.If that's what you're after, this is the book for you. ... Read more

Product Description
With this hands-on, interactive training course, you won't just master Perl: you'll use it to create dynamic CGI applications for the Web, e-commerce, and beyond. Created by world-renowned corporate trainers Deitel & Associates, The Complete Perl Training Course brings together the world's #1 interactive Perl training CD-ROM, The Perl Multimedia Cyber Classroom, and the outstanding introductory Perl textbook, Perl How to Program. You'll find 12+ hours of expert audio training, and 10,000+ lines of working code in over 250 programs -- covering everything from basic Perl syntax through XML and Perl graphical interfaces using Perl/Tk. Listen to in-depth, audio descriptions of key concepts and live code; gain deeper knowledge through the fully-searchable online book; and fine-tune your skills with hundreds of hands-on programming exercises. Start with the fundamentals of Perl syntax and control structures, including arrays, hashes, subroutines, and functions. Learn the fundamentals of CGI programming, including regular expressions, string manipulation, file processing, file/directory manipulation, formatted output, and more.Master the powerful Perl Database Interface (DBI); track sessions and place cookies; and discover advanced techniques for Web automation, process control, and security. You'll even learn how to use XML with Perl, as you build a complete Web-based message forum application. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Training Courses
I would highly recommend the training courses offered by the Deitels. So far, I have used the Java and Perl Training Courses and have found with both that the instruction was consistent and well planned. The examples were done well and the explanations provided in both the book and especially on the CD were easy to follow and understand. I think particularly listening to the CD explanations made working through the material go a lot faster, at least for me.
I believe that the Deitels have made every effort to make a product that truly is an effective learning tool. They also pleasantly surprised me by promptly answering any emails that I sent to them regarding questions I had about the material in the book.

I feel confident that because of the Deitels' products I have gained a solid foundation in both the Java and Perl programming languages. For any and all programming languages I plan to learn in the future, I will check first to see if there is a Deitel training course available and start my learning process there.

Beginning to Intermediate Programmers
This book does breaks some ground on programming with Perl. Ive learned alot from this book and Ive been using Pascal for quite some time.I would say that those of you that want some quick answers from a book that is written in a way for you to get going with Perl than this is the book. Yet it probably would put some advanced users to sleep but than the title acks that. I gave it a four because it uses too many expluratives. ... Read more

Product Description
Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules offers a gentle but thorough introduction to advanced programming in Perl.Written by the authors of the best-selling Learning Perl, this book picks up where that book left off. Topics include:

• Packages and namespaces
• References and scoping
• Manipulating complex data structures
• Object-oriented programming
• Writing and using modules
• Contributing to CPAN

Customer Reviews (15)

Not recommendable at all...
"Perl Objects, References & Modules" written by Randal L. Schwartz is an overpriced, botched work that does not meet the quality of the first well-known "llama" book.

Just 220 pages for such complex topics like OOP are simply too less allowing novice programmers to get familiar with. Many provided examples are highly complicated and lacking of good explanation.

Sure, this book discusses advanced topics of Perl and therefore is also dedicated to the more experienced user, but it still is a book for people wanting to learn this great programming language - unfortunately they face a hard time when trying to do so.

Well, Mr. Schwartz stated at the preface of this book that it was mainly written in a bar (with some beer, I guess). And yes, it reads like that...

exactly what it claims to be
This book provides exactly what it promises: a clear, concise, and complete explanation of how one uses objects, references, and modules in the Perl programming language.The didactic style does an excellent job of explaining concepts in straightforward terms, and maintains a light, conversational tone so that the reader doesn't fall asleep.For those who have a genuine interest in programming, and who enjoy learning new things, PORM encourages this and plays to it, to good effect.As a second Perl book after Learning Perl, I recommend it without hesitation.

Now for the bad news: this is an old book.The later editions have been renamed "Intermediate Perl", and more directly follows on the heels of Learning Perl.At the time of this writing, I have not read Intermediate Perl and cannot comment on its quality as an update of PORM, but based on a solid foundation like this it would be difficult to go far wrong.

Important Note - Discontinued
New editions of this book are no longer in the works, as this title is being discontinued.O'Reilly's "Intermediate Perl" by the same authors (Randal L. Schwartz, brian d foy, and Tom Phoenix) is the new edition of this book.The first edition of "Intermediate Perl" was released March 2006.So if you're thinking about purchasing this book, purchase "Intermediate Perl" instead.It includes the same material (albeit updated) by the same authors.Once again, this title has been discontinued.

"Evolutionary" method to explain Perl Structures, References, Objects
This book attempts something very interesting: not just to describe "how" central aspects of Perl work, but also to understand the process of "how Perl got there". Thus, the book does not serve the "conclusions" right away; it reaches them via a series of experimentations and improvements (in fact, similarly to what is done in other sciences).
To make it interesting (and humorous but realistic at the same time) the book presents a band of "software sailors", who write navigation software. They quickly discover the pleasures of workgroup development; they start reusing software with "eval" (on library files), they then limit unwanted effects with "do", to finally adopt "require" to pull a file only once. Then, after chaos still erupts on name collisions (two different "turn_to_port" routines with the same name, which send one boat into a loop..), the sailors discover "package", and finally, the fleet can proceed with a certain harmony [note: given the structure of the book, "use" will be introduced a lot later, in chapter 12].
This is a very original software lesson; for anyone who reads chapter 2, it will be hard to see the line "package Xyz" and not smile remembering (at least once) the conflicts between Skipper & Gilligan. This is great teaching, as your mind associates a "scenario", not just a "habit", to a programming line.

There are other chapters equally brilliant; more than the "Object" chapters, I liked especially the one on "Subroutine References". It begins explaining how to reference a named subroutine, and it then builds a hash of sub references. Then, it prods us to do the next logical step (with a trick which recurs along the book: "why waste some brain cells to define a name for each subroutine, to only use it to initialize the data structure?"), gently pushing the reader to accept "anonymous" subroutines, code them in the hash structure itself, and enjoy the remarkable simplification of the code that results! The stage is now set to introduce "Callbacks", and then "Closures"; again, with the same method of "one evolution at the time":
a) first a variable is declared to hold the callback, followed by a naked block with a private context and the callback assignment.
b) then the code is simplified with a subroutine encharged to contain the variables on which the closure is done and to return the reference to the anonymous subroutine.
c) last, it shows how the same subroutine can be invoked simultaneously, keeping its own context in every call.
I must say that, after you begin to realize the power of "Closures" (I went back to read "Programming Perl", p 260-262, to fully understand it), you regret that the only example given by the book is so elementary (findFile). Imagine instead, to remain with the sailors theme, a routine which computes a boat trajectory (closing on boat's initial position, velocity, etc), and a main routine instantiating multiple boats and launching them in a race. Multiple automatas in action (with a few lines of code!); this would close the chapter in full glory.

More than once you have the strange feeling that the book was written under a constraint of having less than 200 pages. Examples: it presents a remarkable lesson on Autovivification, but fails to alert against unvoluntary autovivifications (when testing structures for existence).
Or see for, in chapter 2, the section "Packages and Lexicals" whose first line is: "A lexical variable isn't prefixed by the current package because package variables are always global". The statement is not false but it is so awkward at the start a section ("X does not have property Z, because only Y has Z"). Why not to spend a few pages, mentioning the Perl symbol table and on this basis explain concretely the difference between "lexical, global, local"? else, everything remains so abstract.
Still, these are minor defects of an unique remarkable book. The introduction mentions that the material is built on the Stonehenge courses; for all of us without the opportunity to attend them, but able to read, think and experiment, this book is an excellent deal to "see" the Stonehenge people in action.

Great book
This book is perfect if you want to expand your perl horizon.It only gets 4 stars because, hey, I can't give everything five stars. ... Read more

Product Description
Perl is a powerful and flexible programming language. A programmer can easily put together short Perl programs to perform tasks that might otherwise require hours of development effort from a team of specialists—and its free! Perl is different in many ways from more conventional languages, and programmers who are used to Java, C or C++ can find its syntax and data types unusual. The Programmers Companion is intended to show such programmers the power of Perl and to introduce them to its unique features. Clearly flagged comparisons with other languages help relate Perls features to familiar territory. Written in a clear and approachable style, the authors account of Perl is informed by his extensive knowledge of other programming languages. The book includes:

• a description of new Perl5 language extensions and characteristics such as the object-oriented features
• live, up-and-running programming examples based on real Perl scripts
• an introduction to the use of modules which extend the power of Perl into many application areas
• using Perl on the Web
• pointers to Perl resources on the Web

The examples in the bookmake sense and, best of all, they are original and have real-worldrelevance. When explaining pack() and unpack(), the author creates awonderful example of parsing the headers of a MIDI file to gathertrack data and then process the individual tracks of the file. Whilethe book does not pack the heft of some Perl tomes (it only contains273 pages), it's crammed with great examples and ideas. In short,Perl: The Programmer's Companionis a great addition to any Perlprogrammer's library. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Not a useful reference book
Not a good choice for a reference book.Would be useful only if interested in light reading about a subject that you are already familiar with.I would highly encourage any newbie or anyone wanting to get real work done to avoid this book.... your time and money (sorry I already spent mine) would best be spent elsewhere.

Useful code examples keep reader interested
Easy to read, with many useful code examples in every chapter which I could use immedialtely in my work.I liked it a lot, and since I have plenty of *real* exercises from my job, I didn't miss the lack of contrivedexercises at all!

Excellent for learning Perl if you are literate
One of the other reviewers (who gave the book only 2 stars) complained: >The wording was difficult to interpret. It seemed as if it was written for someone in their fourth year of college at Harvard University (whichsort of an exagerration, but it did seem like that at times).<

Thereviewer may not realize that the author is British.The British generallyseem to be more articulate than Americans, so the language reflects thatdifference.

That aside, this book is a good choice for new Perlprogrammers, in that it is less "techie", although it still hassome real substance to it.

Great book for experienced programmers learning Perl
Perl The Programmer's Companion is a great book for experienced programmers who want to learn Perl. While the camel book is the "must-have" reference, it really doesn't teach Perl programming. Chapman explains how to use Perl effectively, along with the language'ssubtleties and nuances.He also devotes some effort in describing goodPerl programming style.

Fun read, useful reference
Nigel Chapman has an awesome talent for conveying material clearly and concisely.In just 273 pages, you will learn all the basics and then some.Chapman copiously supplants his dictatorial, amusing content with practical examples.The tables dispersed throughout the book add to its value as a reference, and I've found them extremely useful on many occasions.

Be aware, however, that this book will confuse you in no time if you're not already familiar with another programming language.He doesn't start with the classic "Hello, world!" example but quickly jumps into regular expressions, and he doesn't go out of his way to explain concepts like arrays and objects before teaching their syntax.Chapman concludes with overviews of some useful modules and CGI programming (both sections are somewhat outdated by now, though).

My criticisms of this book are that its layout is somewhat primitive (this is not exactly a pretty book), and Chapman is afraid to venture too far into anything that's even slightly OS-dependent, like sockets and database programming (not included in his overview of modules).In my version, there also aren't any exercises at the end of the chapters.

Overall, however, this book is PERFECT for you if you're somewhat literate (in at least one programming language and in the English language) and would like to learn Perl as quickly as possible.Highly recommended.And unlike whatever reviewers have suggested, I think it makes a lovely reference, too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Perl How to program
It is advertised for 2 book set, but I only received 1 book part A. However, after contact the seller, i get half of the cost refund.

Perl - How To Program
I like software program book written by Dietel. It has an excellence of illustration and easy to understand step-by-step.

This book was not written by Perl programmers
A Perl novice picking this book up will be impressed. It's big, the prose is good, and it seems to have a command of the subject.

This is all misleading. The book was written by professional authors who pick up a language as they write a book. Perl isn't like other langauges - the mindset and featureset are completely different. Writing effective Perl means getting a grasp on ideas taken from awk, sed, Lisp, C++, sh, and a dozen other places. This book teaches Perl as if it were another C dielect with a funny syntax. This certainly makes it easy to "leaern Perl", but after reading over 800 pages, you'll actually learn very little Perl. And no wonder - large amounts of this book were cut and paste verbatum from other books Dietel wrote about C++ and Visual Basic! Nothing unique to Perl is discussed, such as Perl's excellent date manipulation fascilities, object serialization, or indeed any module beyond the CGI module (on which a thousand books have been written).

Descriptions of features are vague and half hearted showing lack of a clear understanding. To someone who knows Perl, this book sounds like a homework assignment where someone read about Perl and then wrote about their findings, uncertainties and all.

Throughout the book, code listings basically work (I worked hard on that as a paid technical reviewer - my name is in the credits - and this was no small task) but they too completely miss the style, spirit, and indeed the point of programming Perl. They're riddled with security holes. They don't leverage modules, and Perl's CPAN repository is probably it's greatest strength.

I don't like writing bad reviews. I don't like having failed to have persuaded the authors to address security. I wanted to like this book since it was the first I've worked on. With lots of help from people who truly grasp Perl this book could have been medicore but Dietel's production-line like business model doesn't allow for this. Books need to be written by experts or at least senior members of the community. Rank novices cannot just read other books and repeat back their findings and call it a book. Or perhaps you honestly believe that Dietel has mastered every language on the sun and had plenty of time left over to write an 800 page book about the language they learned last month.

As with any bad review, you should be asking what motivated the bad review. Often it's a frustrated novice. Sometimes it's pure snobbery. Other times it's religion or a burnt employee. I'm not a Perl novice; I've been programming for 21 years now and I've been programming in Perl quite heavily for about 6 of those. I'm a bit of a Perl snob but only because there are so many really excellent books like Programming Perl, Learning Perl, Beginning Perl, CGI Programming with Perl, and scores of others. Dietel treated me very well and paid me fairly (again, I wish I could give an average review). I'm just writing this review to temper the initial impressions of those first learning Perl with a slightly more educated assessment.

If you want one massive book with loads and loads of Perl knowledge, Computer Science & Perl Programming was collectively written by about 20 of the best known Perl hackers who have developed the most important modules, worked on the core, and spoke and written more often than anyone else. And while CS&PP has nearly the same page count, it costs half as much. Besides being more thorough, more insightful, more interesting, and in better style, it's a heck of a lot of fun.

In short, Perl: How to Program is just another in-it-for-the-money amaturely written Perl+CGI book with a lot of padding and little insight.

Poor CD installation ...dies in the middle
I have only read the first chapter. Looks okay. However, I bought it with CD rom at original price (not from amazon) and I have such a hard time installing it. The Damn thing doesn't install on either of my win2k machines nor on Red hat 9 which I dual boot with one of my win2k.

I am really frustrated.

I'm falling asleep
Because of my school, I own 4 of these hideous beasts. While the books contain a rich assortment of information on their particular subjects, they can be verbose in the extreme. Additionally, they seem to be poorly organized as some other reviewers have mentioned. It is very difficult to pick up these books and stay interested for more than 5 minutes. I've had to purchase other books to actually learn the languages and utilize the Deitel books as references. Some people may find these books to be fine; I suspect we all learn differently. If you enjoy books that get right to the point and with better organization, look elsewhere. ... Read more