Perl is a powerful interpreted programming language that has matured steadily since it first appeared in 1988. The first edition of this book, Programming Perl, hit the shelves in 1990, and was quickly adopted as the undisputed Bible of the language. Since then, Perl has grown with the times, and so has this book. Programming Perl provides a unique introduction to the Perl language and its culture, as you might expect only from its authors. This third edition of the book has been expanded to cover version 5.6 of Perl. New topics include threading, the compiler, Unicode, and other features that have been added or improved since the previous edition.
Larry Wall wrote Perl and he wrote Programming Perl. Better yet, he writes amusingly and well--all of which comes across in this latest edition of the definitive guide to the language.
Like Topsy, Perl just grew, and as a result the need for a third edition came about. It's now over 1,000 pages, which it needs to be, as it performs several different duties. First, it's an introduction to the Perl language for those who are new to programming; also, it's a guide for those who are coming from other languages; and, finally, it's a Perl language reference.
Among Larry Wall's other pursuits is being a linguist, and it's perhaps for this reason that Perl is a peculiarly flexible language with many routes to achieving the same ends, as the authors ably demonstrate. It's also extensible in several ways, designed to work with many other languages. Also, as it's largely interpreted, programs written in Perl tend to run unmodified on a variety of platforms--although platform-specific Perl modules and programming practices are also discussed.
A major strength of Programming Perl is the way subject areas are approached from several directions. This constant shift of viewpoint eliminates blind spots in the reader's understanding and provides a pleasing echo of the way Perl itself can take many routes from here to there.
Because the Perl community is both knowledgeable and active, the language covers much more ground here than in the previous edition. Even if you have both previous editions, you'll want this latest version--if only for the new jokes. --Steve Patient, amazon.co.uk
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Definitive manual for Perl:
If you are programming in Perl, this is a required book to have. It is the definitive manual on the language written by the author of the language, yet is very readable.
It is difficult to study perl using only this book.:
It is difficult to study perl using only this book.
Learning perl is the best way to study perl.
This book should be a reference of perl. And there are many examples on the Net.
You can use these examples to modify for your purpose.
Sometimes, you should study how to debbug perl.
Perfect!:
I decided to buy this book because I needed to learn Perl after having programmed in several other languages for my new job. I was looking for a reference guide that pretty much outlined EVERYTHING that Perl can do. Proper syntax, short cuts, how to properly go about writing code in this language, how do write certain operations... etc I was also looking for something that could be authoritative and set the STANDARD for how something should and should not be done... and not be written by some... more info
Good Primer for Perl:
I program in C# almost exclusively. However, I needed some serious regex power and this kind of power can only be handled/performed with Perl. Well, I have been learning Perl now for about 2 months and this book is uber invaluable to my book collection and has made it very easy to pick the syntax up quickly. -- smerkdaddy
