Rating: 
Summary: The Best Introductory Book on the Market
Review: 'Elements of Programming with Perl' by Andrew Johnson is simply the best introductory Perl book on the market. It is patient in pace and rich in content. Concepts are introduced and explained in error free code. Diagrams are effectively utilized to reinforce understanding.Having read Larry Wall's 'Programming Perl' and Tom Christiansen's 'Learning Perl' I was already acquainted with the basic constructs of the language. However as Perl is my first programming language I lacked the skills necessary to write effective reusable programs. 'Elements of Programming with Perl' early on presented the process of program design, and reinforced good design practice through well-organized code examples presented throughout all of the topical chapters. Each chapter builds on & reinforces topics presented in previous chapters. I often found myself reading about a function I had been introduced to elsewhere, and upon following the book's example code finally discovering it's practical potency. As an example, prior to reading this book I had been capable of sorting lists of hostnames by domain only by inefficiently using a regular expression to copy the domain & pre-pend it to the beginning of the hostname. Then using the default 'sort' function followed by a loop to discard the pre-pended domain. Now I can tailor the sort function to serve my needs efficiently replacing that tangle of code with just three lines. The book is well written with few wasted words and unlike most other authors this one understands & makes an effort to teach users of Active State Perl on Windows platforms as well as those using MacPerl. There are no sections or examples exclusive to Unix. It is refreshing to work through and use examples that are not devoted to system administrative tasks. The chapter on module use demonstrates fetching web pages through code that retrieves stock quote and trade volume information and then graphically charts the data. How much more practical & timely can an example be? The author makes himself available online, responds to questions, patiently reviews code and politely makes suggestions. My tool bag now full, my understanding thorough I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: This book will take to you to a new level of competence
Review: Four or five other reviewers said this book "fills the gaps" between the O'Reilly books (Learning Perl & Programming Perl). I agree, but I had no idea what that meant until I bought the book. So here is what that means in practical terms. If you're like me, you know enough Perl to get the job done. You learned what you needed. But there may be things you never picked up, and this book will give you a lot of that. Never learned about modules? Or worse, do you just put "use CGI" in your code without knowing what it means or how you could expand on it? Chapters 14 and 16 explain about modules, how to get them from CPAN, how to create your own, etc. Have you always thought the perlfaq was too obscure and massive to use easily? The faqgrep tool on page 49 will demystify it. Have you been looping through your arrays, trying to find matches with a regex (or worse, a string comparison)? That always seemed okay to me. But using the grep and chaining functions for arrays (in chapter 12) is more clever, and reduces loops to "that old brute-force method I once used" in some cases. The bottom line is this book is very meat-and-potatoes practical. It will make your everyday work with Perl better, because you'll understand a lot of things that no one explained to all of us self-taught Perl programmers. And you may finally feel like someone clued you in to some of the better Perl tricks and concepts. This isn't getting 5 stars from me for only two reasons. First, the index is missing a lot of stuff that I know is there, so I end up leafing back through the pages looking for a familiar spot. And second, there isn't any discussion of the Perl DBI -- not that I need it, but I was hoping there would be some insight and tips for that, since all the other stuff was so good.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not buy if you search for CGI skills
Review: Funny how different opinions people may have about a book here. I bought this book having read a number of praising comments and tried to use the book for my needs (elements of Perl and CGI). First, the book gets very, very, very lengthy with the elements (well, the very name of the book is "Elements of...") and it never gets very far beyond a "hello world". Being a programmer I would certainly understand most of the stuff in tenth of the amount of
pages. What is Perl most famous for? CGI, you might say. So would I. This book has only 4 (four) pages on CGI programming and ONLY 20 pages about the use of modules! The book does not even mention databases!!!! As it says, it is only about the elements, not the use of the language. No CGI, believe me!!! The index of the book is next to useless. I have searched for several keywords without success and come accross them in the text when quickly scanning for them in various contexts. Is indexing really this hard??? The book has got just about everything wrong for anybody who knows at least a bit about programming and/or is accustomed to using a normal book with a normal index. It may be good for a rookie programmer who reads it page to page from the front cover to the end cover. I am an adult reader and want to have a book with ORGANIZATION of data. If you are planning to write CGI programs, buy ANYTHING but this book. As my budget was limited to one book I had to use the Internet for
tutorials which - surprise surprise - covered the same topics in a tenth of the space and included CGI programming stuff as well.
Rating:
Summary: A nice complement to the Llama - but different, essential
Review: I agree with the statement that this book is a great intermediate step between the Llama (Learning Perl) and the Camel (Programming Perl). It is written in a very different style than the O'Reilly, and I am sure I will find myself using both. The O'Reilly is great for quick reference on syntax but Johnson goes into more depth, in a more narrative style, on how to *use* Perl in real software development situations. It is a great book to read cover to cover - it is less than 350 pages - because it teaches Perl through building a story from beginning to ... well, it's open ended. For intelligent beginners, it doesn't just teach programming in Perl but also concepts of planning a program and using best practices, including documentation. For programmers experienced with other languages (which is where I fit), it teaches Perl by weaving it into a "story" that we already know well, so it's easy to follow along with the flow and - surprise! - by the end, you know Perl. The only criticism I would have is that, because of the narrative style, the book does not facilitate easy reference, and the index is poor, so if you need to find a nice piece of code you remember reading, you might have to dig a while.
Rating:
Summary: A nice complement to the Llama - but different, essential
Review: I agree with the statement that this book is a great intermediate step between the Llama (Learning Perl) and the Camel (Programming Perl). It is written in a very different style than the O'Reilly, and I am sure I will find myself using both. The O'Reilly is great for quick reference on syntax but Johnson goes into more depth, in a more narrative style, on how to *use* Perl in real software development situations. It is a great book to read cover to cover - it is less than 350 pages - because it teaches Perl through building a story from beginning to ... well, it's open ended. For intelligent beginners, it doesn't just teach programming in Perl but also concepts of planning a program and using best practices, including documentation. For programmers experienced with other languages (which is where I fit), it teaches Perl by weaving it into a "story" that we already know well, so it's easy to follow along with the flow and - surprise! - by the end, you know Perl. The only criticism I would have is that, because of the narrative style, the book does not facilitate easy reference, and the index is poor, so if you need to find a nice piece of code you remember reading, you might have to dig a while.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading
Review: I am pleased to recommend this book. As another reviewer wrote, I have also read Learning Perl and looked through Programming Perl, but while I was able to learn a fair amount from them, I kept feeling a bit lost when it came to things like how exactly do I use regexes and the types of data structures etc. I took a programming course in Pascal and Fortran too long ago (21 years), I think. At any rate, this book helped me feel a lot more confident with Perl - how to use CPAN, the abundant Perl documentation etc. I don't think that it would be the best book for a first-time programmer without an instructor, but if you have the stamina and perserverance to learn on your own, then this book is a must. Further, the book reads well. In addition, all errata in the first edition can be found at the publishers website, and are generally minor corrections.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book for Beginners/Non-Programmers
Review: I bought this book as a text book for a Perl course I'm taking. Looked into several Perl books earlier, but most of them were very hard to read. I'm very pleased with this book, as it simplifies the programming process in terms anyone could understand!
Rating:
Summary: Emphasis on Programming
Review: I came to this book with some experience in Javascript and Lingo, but no foundation in programming concepts and a desire to learn Perl. This book was perfect for me. It focuses on programming practices from the beginning, using Perl code for examples of major concepts. By the time it deals directly with the language, you're already familiar with the way Perl looks and works. For me, some of the early material wasn't necessary, but the author's style is transparent enough not to become obsequious. It's refreshingly free of "now let's do ____; but first let's do ____" idioms that insult and baffle simultaneously. Anyone who wants to learn programming, but doesn't plan to actually use Visual Basic in the future, should consider this book. It makes a primer on programming concepts unnecessary, and it give a solid introduction to a widely useful language.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book to Fill in the Gaps
Review: I have used Perl off and on in my job and have Learning Perl and Programming Perl. Many times I felt like I didn't truly understand how and why something worked in Perl. This book cleared up a lot of details and introduced me to many new features. I would not recommend it for a complete beginner, but if you have had some experience with scripting, you should do fine. One word of caution, the last few chapters should be read and reread carefully; they cover very difficult material. Additionally, this book avoids any OS bias; Win32 and Mac users can learn from this book as well.
Rating:
Summary: Great Emphasis Programming
Review: I own all the O'Reilly Perl books, and this definitely filled the gap between the Llama and the Camel. If you are new to programming, and sometimes get stumped reading the Camel or Panther, take some time out and read this book. It covers some ground that we sometimes miss when we get thrown into projects in todays hectic workplace. It is also written and I find it very enjoyable to read. I give it a "2 Two Thumbs Up".
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