Rating: 
Summary: New Edition Soon.
Review: The Second Edition of the Perl Cookbook will be coming out in two months (August 2003). I always like to know this before buying a book. This does not mean that this new edition will be better than the original, just something buyers should be aware of.
Rating: 
Summary: This is an awesome book.
Review: After reading Learning Perl and Perl Programming, if you read this, you'll be 95% set in regards to everything you will need to know to be a genuine professional Perl programmer. Those three books, from beginner to advanced, will leave you wanting only a little more in your thirst for Perl knowledge. You'll be in a position to learn the rest through experience and online recources--this saving a lot of money (unless you like to connect every single O'Reilly book anyway, like me).
Rating: 
Summary: Not that Organized
Review: This book has some good tips and techniques, but sometimes very
hard to find. Best if you use it with another perl book say, "Programming Perl".
Rating:
Summary: Every Perl programmer should have it
Review: In the past, I've had a bad experience with Cookbook-styles. One example would be a "CGI/Perl Cookbook". But this one is nothing like its counterpart.To be able to follow the cookbook, you're expected to have a basic knowledge of Perl, Perl data structures and IO filehandles. The rest is "in order to get there, do like this, because of that" - style. Very easy to follow, very concise and at the same time informative. What you will appreciate the most of this book is, it doesn't just give you a solution, but it also teaches you the solution. The book consists of 20 chapters, each chapter dedicated to a distinct subject, such as Strings, Numbers, Dates and Times, Arrays, Hashes, Pattern Matching, File access, File Contends and so on. Each chapter, consists of smaller sections, called "Receipts". Each receipt is dedicated to a solution of one commonly encountered real-life problem. For example, Receipt 8.6, "Picking a Random Line from a File" introduces the problem , gives a very elegant solution: "rand($.) < 1 && ($line=$_) while <>", and provides a one page exciting description of the algorithm, followed by references. Although I've been involved in Perl extensively for the last 3 years, I still catch myself skimming through the receipts to compare my solutions to that of the book. Frequently I end up discovering something new and exciting. The book is definitely of value. Any Perl programmer should have it.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly overrated...
Review: When I first looked at this book, it seemed like a good idea. Perl is sufficiently arcane for there to be lot's of simple solutions that will not be immediately obvious. However, the book has two major faults. It is too thick, and it is too specific. What I had hoped for was something like "Design Patterns", but for Perl. But instead of trying to generalize, this book tries to list every specific problem that the beginning Perl programmer is likely to meet. For that reason it is unreadable. Any real insight is bound to get hidden in between dozens of trivial tasks. And when you actually meet some problem you think would be a good idea to look up, it is unlikely to be exactly the same as the authors envisioned (why not simply write a library instead?). With the general incompetence level in the IT-sector during the dot-com bubble, it is possible this book needed to exist, but today it seems like a monument of stupidity, a useless reference that will catch dust forever.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Excellent - Great work!!
Review: I used it for most of my Perl programming requirements.
Superbly written, great content, great examples,very helpful!
Rating: 
Summary: go with programming perl instead
Review: Don't spend money on this book. Unless you are a beginner with no experience you will not learn anything new from it. Programming Perl is a much better book that contains all of the information found in this book plus x10 more.
Rating:
Summary: Best practical book on Perl
Review: I have seen lots Perl books and documentations, but this one very helpful when you really coding Perl. It has practical problems solved and discussed. It only lacks detailed matter on CGI-Perl.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic resource
Review: Having used Perl for about 3 years now, I was overly comfortable with the language and originally bought the book because many a colleagues had recommended this resource to even seasoned perl programmers .The approach of this book is far different from most of those lofty, heady books with their shopping carts and examples of basically useless coding ideas. Tom takes real life needs and cooks them up with short, useable snippets of code. Having read this book from front to back i have found the resource ideal as a daily reference for problem solving]." Another nice thing was that I started finding functions that I didn't even know existed and then started imagining uses for them to solve problems I hadn't thought of as problems! Great one. Keep these good books coming
Rating:
Summary: Best of them all.
Review: Hands down the best Perl book available. Excellent examples, excellent descriptions and overall a well thought out book. Anyone planning to write Perl should own this book.
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