Learning Perl, Third Edition
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Spotlight Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 4.21Customer Rating: 2
Summary: Poor organization and inconsistent tone
Comment: I'm surprised to see so many positive reviews for _Learning Perl_. As another reviewer said, I think these comments represent more enthusiasm for the language than for the book. Randal Schwartz has a great reputation in the open-source community, and I have no experience with him as a trainer or consultant, but judging from this book I wouldn't hire him.
The book has a serious problem in that the tone is totally inconsistent. Difficult concepts are explained in terms that assume in-depth knowledge of C, C++, and UNIX; and simple concepts are run into the ground in page after page of trivial examples. The authors also make the serious mistake, all too common in technical books, of providing jokey examples that obscure the main point---identifiers that form puns on statements, irrelevant jokes in comments, and so on. To some people this comes across as a light, friendly tone; to me it smacks of condescension and clannishness.
I made the mistake of trying to use this book as a textbook for an introductory Perl class of students with a variety of levels of programming experience. The C-savvy students were bored, and the beginners felt they were being teased and condescended to.
Summary: This book isn't up to O'Reilly's usual high standards. If you want to learn Perl, and you already have some programming experience, start with _Programming Perl_ and _Perl Cookbook_ (the Camel Books). If you have no programming experience, start with Simon Cozens' _Beginning Perl_.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: A great introduction
Comment: This book is aimed at Perl novices and sys admins who need to get up to speed quickly. As with most O'Reilly books I found the authors know thier stuff and the book was well edited.
The book contains enough info to allow you to script most sys admin tasks, and has the benefit of being short and therefore easy to carry, but once you get a taste of Perl's power you will no doubt want to get the "camel" (programming perl), which is more comprehensive.
Customer Rating: 5
Summary: questions about perl
Comment: i read nine chapters of this book
1.i still don't know what perl can really do.
2.can perl work only under DOS?not windows?
3.what books should i read next to became a perl programmer
4. (can perl make PC games?)
5. how can i turn my perl program into a regular .exe program so it could run on computers that doesn't have perl!
thanks