Programming Perl (3rd Edition)

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

Product Description
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.

Many say that the examples are convoluted, or that he focuses on obscure language references. One says the book starts quickly with a discussion of the splice function. The first mention of splice is on page 355, which I certainly don't define as 'quickly'....

Others say that there are no examples, or they are not explained clearly, but there's a short sample program right on page 18, and then 4 pages are devoted to analyzing the program and how it works. Further review through the book shows many small examples, especially in the sections that outline the core functions of Perl, and the core modules of Perl.

Others come here and criticize Perl the language, and use this as a platform for their own advocacy of other languages. This is just silly. If you're interested in Perl, or you've been using Perl and you want to know more, buy this book. In the universe of computer programming, every language choice you make is controversial, and subject to debate, and just because some reviewers do not like Perl the language, it does not mitigate the quality of this book.

That all being said, and debunking the frankly lousy reviews, I'll caution that this is NOT for beginning programmers, or people with limited technical knowledge. O'Reilly knows this, and anyone who has read this book should know this too. There is a book called 'Beginning Perl', also from O'Reilly, and written by one of the other top minds in Perl. It is easy to follow, provides many concrete examples and is where a beginning programer should begin. If you have a technical background, you will probably be able to start with this book, though Learning Perl is still worth reading.

What this book provides is not only an exhaustive guide to the language of Perl, and it's abilities, but also insight into it's design, the decisions of the creator of the language (Larry Wall, the main author of the book created Perl), and the major philosophy behind Perl.

This is a valuable reference and worth having.

This is the book that I turn to when I have Perl questions.

And this book is worth every penny I spent to get it.


Who said ....   May 10, 2001
136 out of 164 found this review helpful

The book is definetely written for those who at least have some (or maybe a little more than just "some") programming background, and willing to learn Perl from the author of the language.

I read the first edition of the book, which was about 200 pages, or something in that range, which filled my mind with nothing but questions. Current edition, however, could answer to all of those questions (well, almost). Of course, to make it answer them I had to re-read the book four times. But none of the books I currently own (and I own quite a few) could've taken me to the innards of the language so deep no matter how many times I had read them. So the book is of value.

The Camel book, especially, does a great job on Regular Expressions and pattern matching. If you want to learn RegEx of perl in very details, you definitely need listen to the author of Perl. "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Jeffrey Friedl is also a good choise, but doesn't include the latest updates.

Formats aren't covered very well though. So you might consider "The Lama book" for that ("Learning Perl"). Still, none of the books can tell you about the innards of the Perl in so much detail overall than "Programming Perl".

OOP is also toched upon in the book. Since purpose of the author is not to preach you OO lingo (but plain Perl), you'll treat that part just as an intorduction to OOP and consider "Object Oriented perl" by Damian Convey as the next text book.

I found chpater 14, "Tied variables" very helpfull though. It might remind you of DBM/Berkley DB, through the syntax

tie my %db, 'AnyDBM_File', 'my_file', O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0664;

but unfortunately it's not about DBM at all. It is about how the "tie" function works, and teaches you how to create your own classes for implementing with "tie". After that chapter, I even had to update some of my classes and saved lots of time for their updates.

"Compiling", chapter 18 ,is a must read chapter for those who "live & breath" with Perl (like me, may be ?).

I don't want you to buy the book unless you have a good understanding of Programming or/and have knowledge of some programming languages. Otherwise, it won't help at all.

If your purpose is just to get started with Web applications, go for "CGI progamming 101" by Jacqueline Hamilton. It is a good start. But if you want to go even deeper, "Learning Perl" and "Perl Coookbook" is the next choise. Keep the "The Camel" book as the next (but definitely, not the last).


Step 3 in learning Perl (for CGI)   November 11, 2000
J. Washam
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Why step 3? Step 1, Learning Perl; Step 2, CGI programming with Perl; and this is three. A perfect book for explaining the how and why of what you've learned along the way, yet too deep for the very beginner. I read the chapter on regular expressions first, and now my regexps are much cleaner and more powerful. Then I went to chapter one and read the rest of the book to the end. You can program just fine without this book, but you'll be working too hard. I've cut my programs down in size, while making them much more readable (and faster too!). So do yourself a favor and buy this mug. You'll be glad you did. It's such a wealth of knowledge, and it rubs off on you.


THE Perl book (but tricky, sometimes)   October 20, 2000
25 out of 29 found this review helpful

Finally we have the third edition of this famous Perl book. At the time of the Perl 4 book, there was nearly no alternative. Now we are flooded by Perl books and many are great. Nevertheless, this one remains the "standard" Perl guide from the master himself. They don't comment on why Randal Schwartz left the authoring team and has been replaced by Jon Orwant. The book has now over 1000 pages and is printed on good quality paper. The organization of the chapters is much better. Since Perl can do so many things, one book is still not enough to cover each topic extensively enough. I wished some more explanations about recursive regular expressions, for instance. But on the other hand they know this and therefore recommend the online documentation (perldoc ...). Some examles in the book are somewhat tricky, so that one has to use the brains. Whether this is good or bad must be judged individually. The parts and chapters are now as follows:

Part I: Overview. 1.) An Overview of Perl, Part II: The Gory Details, 2.) Bits and Pieces, 3.) Uniray and binary operators, 4.) Statements and Declarations, 5.) Pattern Matching, 6.) Subroutines, 7.) Formats, 8.) References, 9.) Data Structures, 10.) Packages, 11.) Modules, 12.) Objects, 13.) Overloading, 14.) Tied Variables, Part III: Perl as Technology, 15.) Unicode, 16.) Interprocess Communication, 17.) Threads, 18.) Compiling, 19.) The Command-Line Interface, 20.) The Perl Debugger, 21.) Internals and Externals, Part IV: Perl as Culture, 22.) CPAN, 23.) Security 24.) Common Practices, 25.) Portable Perl, 26.) Plaon Old Documentation, 27.) Perl Culture, Part V: Reference Manual, 28.) Special Names, 29. Functions, 30.) The Standard Perl Library, 31.) Pragmatic Modules, 32.) Standard Modules, 33.) Diagnostic Messages.


If you buy one Perl book, make it this   August 1, 2000
19 out of 24 found this review helpful

Perl has affectionately been described as the swiss-army chainsaw of languages. While Java gets all the press, it is Perl which is quietly working in many back-offices, doing all sorts of menial tasks which take too long in other languages.

I depend upon Perl to write small one-off programs that access and transform data. I also used it to migrate data for 1,800 employees from unstructured Excel spreadsheets to a relational database. It took me far less time and was essentially free when compared to other data migration approaches.

This book is the definitive work on Perl. The authors' love of Perl comes through. What also comes through is that the authors genuinely love their audience. While you will find that they are endowed with laziness, impatience and hubris, you will soon discover that there can be an immensely positive slant to these "vices". Their sense of humor lends fun to what could become a dry subject in others' hands.

Learn Perl from the people that invented the language, that work and train others in the language everyday. Buy this book.