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Book Information

  • Title: Programming Perl
  • ISBN: 0596000278
  • Author/Editor: Larry Wall,Tom Christiansen,Jon Orwant
  • Publisher: O'Reilly
  • Publishing date: 2000
  • Pages: 1092
     Cover of the Book

Book Reviews

Review by Shlomi Fish, January 2003

The Camel Book is O'Reilly's crown Jewel, and after I read it I understood that it was from a very good reason. The book is very informative, occasionally funny or whimsical, and covers every last caveat of the perl 5.6.x interpreter. It covers major issues in dealing with Perl (both simple use and advanced) and references to many CPAN modules and extensions. It covers Perl 5.6.x so it is very up-to-date.

I liked the book so much that I think I'll have to buy it, because I can't remember everything it said there, and I might run into a need of using them. I skipped some sections (like the perlfunc equivalent one), but as a general rule read everything and most sections were very good and enlightening.

I would not recommend it for very beginners because it often relies on information that will be taught only later on. People who are familiar with similar languages like Common Lisp, Python, or whatever, may find it useful as well.

"Programming Perl" is a very good book. If you can buy the Perl CD Bookshelf which includes it and other important titles for your organization, do so, and if you like dead tree (or hopefully dead cannabis) books it will make an excellent read.