Programming Perl (3rd Edition)
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant

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Book Reviews of Programming Perl (3rd Edition)

Book Review: Not for beginners, but an absolute necessity!
Summary: 5 Stars

After reading some of the reviews here, I am reminded of when I first picked up this book and didn't have the background to fully appreciate it.

After using Perl for several years doing Internet programming, and being exposed to all the languages it's possible to use, I still remain devoted to the work of this man, Larry Wall for what I believe to be the greatest contribution of all to humanity and to computer science.

I stopped here to reaffirm that the third edition will cover Object Oriented programming. Although nobody mentions this, I'm sure he will, and another book I have said it would.

Before brushing up on Object Oriented programming for Perl, I decided to re-read Learning Perl and Programming Perl (though I only had the first editions). Unlike the first times I attempted to read these two books, this time I was dumbfounded at how much info they (Larry and Randal) could cram into such a short place. One thing builds upon another. Everything written, the examples and all, took on new meaning. This was exciting reading because all the problems that it took me years to even identify were spelled out before me with examples I could immediately understand. There are many ways to do things in Perl, and my way, the obvious way, usually turns out to be the long way. Reading these books and adopting some new techniques they mention could literally save me years of time!

It's a lot like learning music. Unless someone tells you why you have to learn scales, you won't enjoy doing it and unless you stick with it long enough, you'll never learn why you need to know them.

I guess I'd have to say that sooner or later you will need these two books to be truly effective as a Perl programmer, but if you are a beginner, you won't know enough about Perl to realize why these are really great books. If you have several years of Perl experience, then these books will show you how to be incredibly effective, incredibly organized, and best of all, incredibly lazy!

One thing that makes Perl so strong, is that anything that has ever been done with Unix can be done with Perl. If you're operating equipment with Microsoft software, you're missing half the fun.

This book really shines if you already love Perl and worship those who spent enormous amounts of time making their priceless contributions.

This is probably not a good book if you're new to Perl, in a hurry, and are trying to debug some broken code.

I found "Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days" by Sams Publishing to be all I needed in my early days. I only wish I had the ability to appreciate the information in these other two books then.

I am convinced that Perl is the highest level programming language there is and there is absolutely nothing that can't be done with it in less time and with less code than any other language.

Now I'm going to buy a brand new Programming Perl 3rd edition and I think I'll even have it shipped overnight!

Summary of 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

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