Object Oriented Perl

Rating:
Summary: bless $my_eyes => OOP::Perl5
Review: I had been making use of Object Oriented features of Perl5 long before I purchased "Object Oriented Perl" by Damian Convey. There hasn't been a single CGI/Perl application (almost) of mine that either didn't have its own constructor or inherited one.

So I was a true OO Perl programmer(well, that's who I thougt I was then). Still I wanted to give a try to Damian's "Object Oriented Perl" due to lots of positive reviews the book earned.

Upon buying this book I discovered so many features of OO Perl that I had been missing. I never thougt of using aythings except reference to a hash variable as data structure for my objects (have you?). When Damian started talking about objectifying arrays, subs, typeglobs and even *RegExp* in addition to annonymous hashes, I felt like tearing off all the pages from my previous OO Perl tutorials and eat it.

I was pleased.

The organization of the book is quite logical as well. I found it even better than some O'reilly's Perl books (I love O'reilly), and this was my first book from Manning.

The author builds the base for you to get started with through the first two chapters ("What you need to know first" and "What you need to know second").

The third chapter introduces you to all the basics of Object Oriented Programming in Perl, which all other tutorials out there mostly deal with. In this chapter, you build CD::Music class for managing your CDs.

The fourth chapter, "Blessing Arrays and Scalars" starts off with the section "What's wrong with a hash?" Only then I discovered that hash was not the only data structure I could use for my objects (well, not that I didn't know, but never thought of). In this chapter he also introduces to the pros and cons of blessing arrays, pseudo-hashes, scalars and supports each with an example

Chapter five is even more teasing, which talks about "bless"ing regexps, subroutines and typeglobs.

The rest of the book (starting on page 168) is dedicated to standard OOP lingo, techiques and their implementation in Perl

Language of the book is plain english. I found some of the wordings a little different than I am used to (en-us), but doesn't effect the comprehensibility (is there such word?) of the book at all. It was like taking couple of days off from my O'reilly books.

To illustrate some of the complicated structures (such as inheritance tree) the author uses charts and diagrams. I found them really helpfull, easy to read and understand.

If you are into Perl, and want to get more advanced with Object Oriented features of the language buy this book.

The book definitely " bless $my_eyes => $OOP::Perl5; "

Rating:
Summary: Best OOP book I have read, no matter what language
Review: I have read several Object Oriented Programming books recently (most of them were C++). This is the first book I have read that has taught the material in a format that the average person can read and understand. The examples were great. They were of everyday items the the average person could relate to. The code through out the book was helpful to get the perl implementation of the OOP ideas. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to Object Oriented Programming no matter what the language of choice is. For me, the bonus is that it is in Perl.

Rating:
Summary: Best Perl OOP book.
Review: I pick up this book to learn Perl out of necessity and to see what Perl has to offer in terms of OOP.
Having programmed in VB, C,C++, Java, C#, Forth,Pascal,etc I would say that honestly, Perl is very prone to bugs and hard to read(least readable lanaguage I have seen) and maintain. About the only advantage I see is that it's wide legacy code base in Unix platforms and its terseness(if you feel smart writing cryptic code). In my opinion,honestly, C/C++ code is easier to read because of its stricter syntax.
The OOP in Perl is added as an afterthought and is not clean and there's messy embodiment of complex scaffolding as one reviewer correctly pointed out.
If you have to maintain legacy Perl code and need to write some out of neccessity, this book has much to offer. I like the diagrams and illustrations in it. The author goes to great length to explain things.

If you like clean OOP language, skip Perl and use Java/C# instead. But if you still want a scripting language like Perl, try Python or Ruby instead.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic addition to your Perl collection
Review: I was a bit skeptical when I was first handed a copy of Object Oriented Perl because I tend to be biased toward O'Reilly books. However, after reading it I felt it is one of the best Perl books I have come across. Most Perl books deal with Perl as a scripting language. Conway treats pull like a real development language. He gives the standard introduction to object orientation and objects in Perl and then quickly moves past this to look at some of the unique features of Perl's OO development in Perl. For example, he covers blessing every type of reference possible, why you would want to bless a particular type of reference and what the pros and cons are of each approach.

Conway also gives a very thorough coverage of implementating true data encapsulation in Perl and presents several methods for doing so.

Another thing that struck me about this book is Conway's attention to detail. In his code samples, he carefully explains why each line was written a certain way. He even notes which version of Perl a certain feature or module first appeared in.

All in all, a wonderful book. Even if you have been developing in Perl for a while this book has something to offer.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource
Review: I was wondering if i could learn something else more than just objects, but this book clarify me many doubts about Perl. It even helped me to understand tips that I've learned in some other books. My recommendation is: first give it a shot to the camel book of Programming Perl, and then make that big step to dominate Perl with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great OO introduction and coverage of new features
Review: I'll try to not be redundant: suffice to say that this book is approachable, in-depth, and invaluable.

A pleasant suprise was the coverage of some new additions to the language which have yet to be documented in the standard O'Reilly texts. Among these are pseudo-hashes and threads. I don't know if I'll ever need to bless a pseudo-hash, but I know how!

Thankfully, the author mixes up the data structures he uses for his objects. Thus, you get exposed to the new ways to impliment objects as well as the more conventional ways (lists, hashes, etc...).

Rating:
Summary: Masterfully Written
Review: I've been looking for this book (I mean figuratively, otherwise I would have just bought it from Amazon..) for years. Conway is a fabulous teacher, and does a great introducing higher level Perl concepts (polymorphism, wantarray, etc.) and then returning to them with a JIT (Just in Time) delivery. I learned so much without having my $/ ->ed. On top of it all, his footnotes pose a challenge to the Onion books, as funniest publication of the year.

Congratulations Damian, and Thank You (:

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: I've been writing PERL for years and this book was able to open my eyes to quite a few new concepts. Great book!

Rating:
Summary: Practical insights for 2nd generation Perl OO'ers
Review: I've tried to figure out Perl OO for years using the perl documentation. Even with a M.S. in CS, I didn't get it. It was too ivory tower. Or it was written too early by folks that were too close to core Perl. (Aside -- those early tutorials did a *great* service to Perl and OO. Many thanks to the pioneering authors for their efforts in moving Perl and OO forward! )

Since this book was written years after the original OO perl tutorials, Damian has had the advantage that time allows. He reports, in a clear style, how programmers *really* use the OO aspects of Perl. He reports what practically works, rather than what could theoretically work. He *builds* on the first generation of tutorials that, since they were written so early, did not have practical field experience.

Clearly written. Practical. Well organized. Thorough. Useful. Substantial examples.

Damian clamins to enjoy writing Perl over C++ because he'd rather write Haiku than legal documents. His clarity and playfulness shows.

Rating:
Summary: Best advanced Perl book yet
Review: If you love Perl and want to extend your knowledge of the language, BUY THIS BOOK!!! I worked on an object oriented perl project a while back, and I wish I could have read this book before I started. It's the best!