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Summary: The Definitive Perl Book Just Gets Better
Review: If anyone claims to be a Perl programmer, but doesn't own a copy of the Camel book, then they aren't a _real_ Perl programmer.This is the definitive Perl book, written by the people who are at the heart of the group who develop the language. And as a bonus, not only do they know how to design a great programming language, they also know how to write a great book to explain how to use that programming language. This third edition adds a huge number of pages to cover new Perl features that were added since the last edition, but it also reorganises the information into a far more logical layout. If you program Perl then you need this book.
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Summary: Reference book, nothing more.
Review: As already stated by the other reviewers, this book is not a must-read. It's nothing more than a reference book. Don't learn Perl with this book, nor try to find too advanced features. Learn Perl with "Learning Perl" which is really a must-read for any beginner, even if it requires some light programming background... Most Perl documentation is on the web and books like the "Perl Cookbook" are on-line. Save your money if you have an easy access to the web ... . If you really like Perl (like me) then you should consider "Mastering Algorithms with Perl" which is full of useful tricks for improving the efficiency of your Perl code.
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Summary: Be Brainy Buy this Book and Become a Perl Virtuoso
Review: This book of course is for the programming novice as much of an anathema as the cross is for Dracula. But any scientist --be it a computer scientist, physicist, chemist, geneticist, mathematician, linguist--will find this book a rewarding purchase. Tons of Perl grammar including a smashing nut-shell like reference are spicing up the book into a culinaric Programmers $_=fea|s|t!
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Summary: Perl Bible
Review: The guys on the newsgroups & mailing list are right. This book is Perl Bible. But if you are absolutely new to Perl, get the llama book first. This book is just to the point, no code rewrite for each section like Wrox, or Sams book. It just contains the code that has to do with the topic. The regular expression (which is the best part of Perl) is nicely explained in around 180 pages. And with all those Larry's jokes, I bet you won't fall asleep while reading this book :)
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Summary: Larry subordinated by Redmond?
Review: The holy of holies. Larry has created the most powerful and fun scripting language this side of the Crab Nebula. More fun than a barrel of Baby Kwatos. Too bad Larry appears to have sold out - gone on the ActiveState payroll. Larry is now indirectly employed by the Evil Empire Itself - Microshaft! You cant see it, but right now I am smashing my face against the keyboard. I cant stop. Each time I raise my head off the keyboard, strings of blood and mucous fly off my ruined face in looping strands. Is nothing sacred?
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Summary: Step 3 in learning Perl (for CGI)
Review: 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.
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Summary: Really wonderful
Review: Comprehensive and extremely helpful, and lively to boot. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Which came first the Llama or the Camel
Review: Well in my case the Llama (Learning Perl). I came into Perl only by necessity. I am not a programmer by trade, I am a web designer. When CGI scripts were the new darlings of the Internet I knew I had to get involved. Everywhere I turned people said the way to go was Perl, so I bit the bullet and bought the books. I was lucky enough to have someone suggest to try the llama before the camel, and that worked out well. I just got the new edition and so far I have not been disappointed. Larry Wall has a way of describing the language that is informative and instructional without trying to be cutesy or overly simplistic. Basically, the classic got a great face lift.
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Summary: THE Perl book (but tricky, sometimes)
Review: 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.
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Summary: Much Improved Third Edition
Review: Whilst the second edition was a good book, it remained a bit stodgy, and didn't explain itself well in places. None of this applies to the third edition. This book is so essential, I can actually see it outstripping the also excellent Learning Perl.
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