Rating: 
Summary: A fresh look at OO, through Perl-coloured glasses.
Review: "Object Oriented Perl" brings together the two technical loves of my life: the object-oriented programming paradigm, and the postmodern programming language Perl.Many conventional programmers think of Perl as a necessary evil: a patchwork language conducive only to the ad hoc coding of grubby little "one-line stands", thrown together in the heat of an urgent deadline. Well, Perl *is* that, and probably always will be. But nowadays it's also a full-fledged -- and highly flexible -- object-oriented programming language. One in which you can build large, robust, reliable, maintainable, and extensible systems. And still have fun while your doing so. That's my aim in this book -- to show you how Perl's astonishingly simple model of object-oriented programming nevertheless makes available an extraordinarily rich variety of standard OO techniques, as well as quite a few advanced tricks you may not have encountered elsewhere. Seeing Perl from an object-oriented perspective may well change your mind about the language. And seeing object orientation from a Perl perspective may just alter your whole understanding of the paradigm! Thanks for your interest in my book. It was great fun to write; I hope you enjoy reading it just as much. And if you've made it this far, why not go all the way? Download a couple of sample chapters, and enjoy them in the privacy of your own home! They're on-line!
Rating: 
Summary: Most Excellent!
Review: ...as a 1989 Keanu Reeves might say, if his Ted Logan character could possibly comprehend computer programming. To my ever-growing stack of O'Reilly Perl books, I've just added this gem, which fits nicely alongside Effective Perl Programming (ISBN 0201419750 for the uninformed) as a non-O'Reilly Perl book that every Perl programmer should have at their disposal. Not content with writing just a Perl book, Damian Conway spends the first chapter explaining normally confusing object-orientation concepts in a very clear manner. This tutorial alone is worth a good chunk of the purchase price, especially if you tend to find typical articles on object-oriented programming overwhelming. To fill the rest of your order, the next 400+ pages are pure Perl, as Conway takes every concept introduced in the first chapter and spends a chapter on each one, showing you how Perl accomplishes them. The examples and code samples are very clear, very real-world, and (thusly) very easy to understand. A good deal of time is also spent on tricks and optimizations to help reduce the much-touted performance hit from OO Perl. The later chapters dive into more advanced topics and start combining all the core concepts together. Besides teaching all the ins and outs of OOP, a good number of paragraphs are also devoted to non-OOP advanced Perl techniques. This book transcends its title; it's a book for anyone looking to move into the advanced Perl realm, OOP or not. This book has definitely helped me increase my level of Perl competence and the knowledge gained is presently working to streamline a number of projects I'm on. I'm elated. I think I'll play my air guitar in celebration.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for intermediate AND advanced programmers
Review: /Object-Oriented Perl/ is miles ahead of any other book on OOP that I've ever seen. It sets a new standard in how concepts of OOP should be explained, and how they should be related to the language that the OOP framework is implemented in. And the best thing about this book is that, on the way to explaining various OOP concepts, it manages to elucidate all sorts of non-OOP advanced programming techniques in Perl. So I recommend this book to anyone who's finished /Learning Perl/ and is looking for what to learn next. It's a surprising achievement, and one that makes this book very worthwhile reading for people who don't even particularly care about OOP! And, conversely, because /Object-Oriented Perl/ touches on so many of the possible approaches to OOP, I think that this book would be interesting to people who are interested in OOP, but not terribly interested in Perl per se. It is, in short, a book of immediate as well as lasting value.
Rating:
Summary: No Perl library is complete without this book.
Review: A top-notch handling of object oriented perl. Without a doubt, objects in Perl are a different beast from any other language, but this book handles the concepts and details admirably. In addition, some related topics (how to install a Perl module) are included. The style is very O'Reilly-like (why is this book not from O'Reilly?), right down to the humorous footnotes. The appendix covering the differences between Perl and other OO languages is superb. I only wish that Python had been included.
Rating:
Summary: Perl OOP finally made understandable
Review: After five years of perl hacking, and lot's of wondering about OOP in perl, this book finally relieved me. Single classes were never a problem, but multiple inheritance, was. Even in linear inheritance it was not easy to see, where the object data of the superclasses would go. Things are clarified here. The book also explains OOP as such, which is a good for learning or repetition. The author seems to be extraordinarely versatile in perl hacking and shows every detail of sophisticated use of perl OOP. Although the book is perfect, besides the typoos (, but there is an errata page on the www), one wonders, whether perl is the ideal language for object oriented programming. It becomes once more clear, that perl is the most powerful language, but also the most complicated one. If one would apply the "tie()" function regularely, then nobody could read the code any more. Despite that, the book is needed, because perl is now everywhere, and it can only be good to master it. The chapters of the book are: 1.) What you need to know first (an object-orientation primer), 2.) What you need to know second (a Perl refresher), 3.) Getting started, 4.) Blessing arrays and scalars, 5.) Inheritance, 7.) Polymorphism, 8.) Automating class creation, 9.) Ties, 10.) Operator overloading, 11.) Encapsulation, 12.) Genericity, 13.) Multiple dispatch, 14.) Persistent objects, A.) Quick reference guide, B.) What you might know instead [about other OO languages].
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly Disappointing
Review: After reading so many positive reviews of Damian Conway's "Object Oriented (OO) Perl," I decided to buy a copy and increase my understanding of said subject. Unfortunately, after about two months of thoroughly dissecting each chapter in the book, I must admit that I was surprisingly disappointed. I consider the first two chapters ("What you need to know first" and "What you need to know second") to be well written and quite useful. These chapters effectively and succinctly expressed the non-OO aspect of Perl programming. When I delved excitedly into chapter three, however, it seemed to me that Damian Conway lost his interest in teaching Perl, in lieu of underlining his own mastery of the language. Too many times I recall his overly complicated one-liners getting in the way of a clear explanation of the point he was trying to convey. I bought Damian Conway's OO Perl because I wanted to learn more about object orientation in Perl-not to view obfuscated code. A *lot* more clarity would have the made the book much more useful. A second frustrating point about the book is how Damian writes a given class, and then fails to provide even a simple example of how to use said class. As a programmer reading the book, I found it quite annoying that I had to so often write my own "class calling" scripts. Of the many classes contained in the contents of the book, I recall only one or two working examples of how to use said classes! This baffled me throughout the book. I kept wondering, "Are examples of how to use these classes available on a website or something?" Even as I write this review now, I'm shaking my head at the lack of examples provided in the book. In my opinion, the most appropriate title for Damian Conway's book is "Obfuscated Object Oriented Perl." The solid first two chapters aren't worth the ...cost of the book, and the OO chapters (3-14) are practically worthless-both as a reference, and as a means of instruction. The freely available OO Perl tutorials are of much more value than Damian's book. Said tutorials will not only save you money, but they will also bolster your understanding of OO Perl, which is something I so greatly wanted, but so widely failed to receive, from Damian Conway's OO Perl.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Disappointing
Review: After reading so many positive reviews of Damian Conway's "Object Oriented (OO) Perl," I decided to buy a copy and increase my understanding of said subject. Unfortunately, after about two months of thoroughly dissecting each chapter in the book, I must admit that I was surprisingly disappointed. I consider the first two chapters ("What you need to know first" and "What you need to know second") to be well written and quite useful. These chapters effectively and succinctly expressed the non-OO aspect of Perl programming. When I delved excitedly into chapter three, however, it seemed to me that Damian Conway lost his interest in teaching Perl, in lieu of underlining his own mastery of the language. Too many times I recall his overly complicated one-liners getting in the way of a clear explanation of the point he was trying to convey. I bought Damian Conway's OO Perl because I wanted to learn more about object orientation in Perl-not to view obfuscated code. A *lot* more clarity would have the made the book much more useful. A second frustrating point about the book is how Damian writes a given class, and then fails to provide even a simple example of how to use said class. As a programmer reading the book, I found it quite annoying that I had to so often write my own "class calling" scripts. Of the many classes contained in the contents of the book, I recall only one or two working examples of how to use said classes! This baffled me throughout the book. I kept wondering, "Are examples of how to use these classes available on a website or something?" Even as I write this review now, I'm shaking my head at the lack of examples provided in the book. In my opinion, the most appropriate title for Damian Conway's book is "Obfuscated Object Oriented Perl." The solid first two chapters aren't worth the ...cost of the book, and the OO chapters (3-14) are practically worthless-both as a reference, and as a means of instruction. The freely available OO Perl tutorials are of much more value than Damian's book. Said tutorials will not only save you money, but they will also bolster your understanding of OO Perl, which is something I so greatly wanted, but so widely failed to receive, from Damian Conway's OO Perl.
Rating:
Summary: the object oriented perl text book
Review: After writing many objects in perl using the 50 odd pages found in Programming Perl I am glad to finally have a tome that contains lengthy documentation on object features of perl. I do wish this had been released a few years ago as it has pointed out a few errors in the way that I have been doing things. My ways work, but Damian shows techniques for improving the efficiency of object that I hadn't thought of before. If you are at the point in learning perl that you are starting to cut and paste code from your other scripts to do the same thing in a new script - it is time to buy this book. Cut and paste that code into an new module and you will never need to copy it again, this book will show you how. Even if you are just 'making a module' and aren't really thinking of making classes and objects, read this text - or at least use it as a reference. By doing a small amount of extra work beyond making a module you will be doing OO programming. This book shows you how easy it is to do.
Rating:
Summary: No question about it, a must have.
Review: All of the other reviews for this book pretty much get it right: This book is a must have for any moderately serious Perl programmer who needs to work with or develop object oriented code. The best thing I can say about this book is that it's actually useful. In a sea of unnecessary Perl books (Programming the Perl DBI comes to mind), this book stands out as an immediately valuable tool that you will continue to use over and over again. It has a great rudamentary Perl primer section, object oriented programming primer and, of course, Perl's application of these ideas. This book has definitely helped me to write better code, period. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: No question about it, a must have.
Review: All of the other reviews for this book pretty much get it right: This book is a must have for any moderately serious Perl programmer who needs to work with or develop object oriented code. The best thing I can say about this book is that it's actually useful. In a sea of unnecessary Perl books (Programming the Perl DBI comes to mind), this book stands out as an immediately valuable tool that you will continue to use over and over again. It has a great rudamentary Perl primer section, object oriented programming primer and, of course, Perl's application of these ideas. This book has definitely helped me to write better code, period. Buy it.
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