Rating: 
Summary: bad book
Review: not rnough examples too many diagram
Rating: 
Summary: Self taught programmers using perl must read this book
Review: There are an enormous amount of self-taught programmers that program with perl, especially in the areas of system administration and web development. If you are one of these people you must read this book.When I bought this book I considered myself a capable intermediate level perl and javascript programmer. I had read a number of O'Reilly books including Learning Perl and Programming Perl, and use as references the Perl Cookbook and Perl in a Nutshell. I had realised that the slowing of my progress in learning more advanced perl was due to my lack of understanding of general programming principles, so I was looking for a book that could (gently) teach me this in the context of using perl. Elements of Programming With Perl was the book I really needed, and I don't think there is another book out there that meets the same need. If you are a self taught perl programmer, you should read this book, if not for your own sake, for the sake of the other people that have to deal with your code after you! I won't try and say that the book is perfect because it's not, but it is excellent, and one of a kind. It also provides a good introduction to object-oriented perl, and an ideal primer before moving on to the other Manning publication Object Oriented Perl by Damian Conway (which I also recommend). Have fun programming perl :-) (b.t.w. take no notice of the Amazon review, it completely takes the book out of context, the other reviews testify to the book's quality. Great book, thanks Andrew!)
Rating: 
Summary: Great book for true beginner
Review: This book does a good job of teaching "how to program" to a person with little or no experience in programming. I think it is one of the better books for green programmers. I also like the thorough explanations that teach the concepts of programming "step by step" rather than rattling off lots of code with weak explanations. This book also does a good job in not assuming you speak "computerese" by explaining a lot of terms commonly used like "scalar", "lists", "interpolation", etc. This book was a great stepping stone for me to be able to get into the meatier O'Reilly series. Here's a couple of extracts: "Programming is about solving problems...Computers are mindless devices capable only of doing what they are told...When a method for solving a problem is reduced to a series of simple, repeatable instructions, we call that set of instructions an algorithm."
"...scalar variable, meaning it can only hold a single value."
"If you think of a variable as a storage bin with a name and an address, then you can think of a reference as a forwarding address. When you store a reference to another variable in a scalar variable, you are not storing that variable's value, but the address where its value is stored."
Rating: 
Summary: Too much spread out too thin
Review: This book doesn't feel like a Perl book. It feels like Johnson is a C programmer at heart, trying to write a book about Perl. Worse, it's such a wide survey of Perl as to be incongruous. He's got pages devoted to the thought process behind how to structure a program, which is fine for an introductory text; but then he gets into anonymous hashes and different sorting algorithms. Is this an introductory book or not? The chart on page 184 of all the regex elements is completely useless. It shows all the elements, but doesn't explain at all what they do. It sure LOOKS great. I love the visual internal style of all the Manning books. I haven't seen anything that's incorrect, and he writes clearly enough. It's just poorly organized and feels like it was thrown together.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy if you search for CGI skills
Review: This book is a great way to teach yourself Perl and Programming in general. Coming from a background as a dabbler in C and JavaScript, this book was an excellent starting point for my Perl education. I found the 3rd chapter about programming style and procedure to be extremely helpful. I would recommend this book over "Learning Perl" (the llama book) because of its clearly written style and real-worldish examples.
Rating:
Summary: Great book to start learning Perl and Programming
Review: This book is a great way to teach yourself Perl and Programming in general. Coming from a background as a dabbler in C and JavaScript, this book was an excellent starting point for my Perl education. I found the 3rd chapter about programming style and procedure to be extremely helpful. I would recommend this book over "Learning Perl" (the llama book) because of its clearly written style and real-worldish examples.
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