Perl by Example (3rd Edition)
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 3.68Customer Rating: 4
Summary: Good book for Perl beginners
Comment: As an experienced programmer, I first tried to learn Perl by reading the Camel book (1st edition), but found it tough going. This book practically 'holds your hand' by guiding you through the fundumentals with simple examples and explanations. As a beginners book I'm sure its as good as any other on the market. I still use it as a reference. The turorial on the included CD Rom didn't add much value though - poor sound quality and pretty boring.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: Perfect for those who learn best by actual, clear examples
Comment: As someone who learns best by seeing and doing rather than reading abstract theory and explanation, this book is a God-send! Each example is broken down line by line with clear explanations so you can understand exactly what each programming element does. It's the first book to really show me a tangible example of object-oriented Perl that isn't easier as a standard subroutine. This is not a cookbook, but clarifies many programming language features that the Camel book discusses on a "more elevated" plane. If you read advanced programming language code for fun and didn't get lost anywhere in the Camel book, this approach may bore you. But if you're wanting to fill in all the holes from kludging together all those scripts by Matt Wright, this is for you! Highly recommended!
Customer Rating: 3
Summary: not bad, but there are better introductions out there
Comment: I'm using this book in a class and, while it's fairly solid, I've found a lot of it to be repetitive and lengthier than it needs to be. The O'Reilly "Learning Perl" book is probably a better place to start, although it's helpful to have a bit of UNIX under your belt before tackling that one (come to think of it, you should probably know a bit about UNIX before tackling Perl, regardless of what book you're using).