Learning Perl, Third Edition

Rating:
Summary: Excelente para iniciarse en Perl
Review: Un libro excelente para los que no conocen Perl y quieren dar sus primeros pasos en el.
No diría que es un libro para programadores principiantes, sino que es para programadores medios o avanzados que nunca han visto ni programado una línea de Perl.
El libro está diseñado como si fuese un tutorial paso a paso, donde va introduciendo los conceptos principales del lenguaje. Está muy bien redactado y es fácil de entender. Por supuesto, algunos puntos los pasa muy por encima, pero, teniendo en cuenta que es una gran introducción, al finalizar de leer el libro, el lector estará capacitado para adentrarse solo en el mundo de Perl.
Ideal para diseñar un curso, prácticamente tenemos redactadas las clases una por una. (Los autores vuelcan su experiencia de los cursos que han dado, y los que siguen dando).
Recomiendo, una vez terminado y entendido el libro, que se pase al libro del Camello (Programming Perl).


Rating:
Summary: Excellent book...
Review: This is one heck of a book. It isn't the kind you put on your book shelf! You'll find yourself placing it next to your keyboard and using it for reference quite often. I bought mine using a coupon from UnderTag.com, so it was almost free for me.

Rating:
Summary: I have some complaints
Review: The back cover of the 3rd edition says (roughly), "Ask a perl expert today what book they used when they were learning perl, and they'll tell you it was the llama." Well, yeah; probably when they were learning perl it was literally the only introductory book on the subject. So that's not really an endorsement of quality.

The llama is actually a decent companion on your perl voyage. Particularly if you already think of yourself as a programmer are at least acquainted with the unix way of thinking, it will show you much of what you want to know about perl. And if you're new to perl you'll want to have this book (there still aren't any better options for the newcomer). However,

1. The nonstop Flintstones references are hard to stomach. (Yes, that's a trivial complaint. But it drives me nuts.)

2. There aren't enough exercises. This is a nontrivial complaint. For example, the chapter on control structures has only ONE exercise (!), which you can solve by ignoring most of the material in the section. The chapter which introduces SPLIT and JOIN has no exercises that use them (there aren't any exercises anywhere in the book that use split and join, as far as I can tell.) It's a persistent problem; since most folks learn by doing, they'll be required to exercise some imagination in creating and testing their own exercises. An introductory text should be much stronger in this area.

3. The 3rd edition rewrite moved some fundamental (and easy) stuff into a late-in-the-book "Advanced Perl Techniques" chapter. A few examples off the top of my head are the transliteration operator, slices, and sorting subroutines, which are meat and potatoes perl. They were better integrated into the body of the text in the 2nd edition.

4. The authors actually warn you away from trying things out in some cases! I'm thinking, for instance, of the offhand "CSV files are too hard, don't try splitting them" and "Don't try to work with HTML, it's too hard" comments. That is not in the spirit of perl at all. A few exercises that show what the difficulties are and give a few tricks for handling them would be better. And you'll be in a much better position to used and appreciate a prewritten module if you understand the difficulties it's supposed to be taking care of.

The biggest improvement in the 3rd edition is the reorganization of the regular expression material (into three chapters). They still need more exercises, but the presentation is good. On the whole, though, I liked the organization in the old editions better and probably recommend using one of them if you can find it.


Rating:
Summary: THE beginning Perl book
Review: This book is the best book for the complete Perl beginner. If you know nothing about Perl, or even nothing about programming, this book will get you into the basics of Perl in no time. The writing style is alright, it keeps you interested in the book, and the topic. There are practice problems to do at the end of the chapters, to give you some practice with the language and the way Perl works. I recommend for any beginner in Perl, or beginner in programming. If you have a decent understanding of the Perl basics, you'll want Programming Perl instead.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: I have read quite a few perl books but this one is simply amazing. Simple, concise and yet highly detailed, this covers all basics of Perl with through examples, as well as providing some insight into the more advanced techniques. Highly recommended for the entry and intermediate level.

Rating:
Summary: questions about perl
Review: 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