Single best intro - do not be fooled by bad reviews

books:

	• Learning Perl, Second Edition Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Christiansen, ..., 1997 - 302 pages average customer review:based on 292 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Good Starting Place

I came to this book with 10 years C/C++ programming experience and need to quickly learn enough Perl to understand and modify some Perl scripts. "Learning Perl" met my needs perfectly. This book is well organized and its presentation of the language is relatively clear and concise. A slight annoyance is the near constant promotion of Perl.

While I've gained a degree of competence and confidence with Perl, I'm still not a zealot. It's on to the camel book for me

very good book for starting perl

This is excellent book for beginers. Why?

1)The authors are established experts on perl. When I say experts I mean so much so they are famous in the perl community. It is also clear from this book that they have a wealth of other knowledge related to perl (especially linux, design patterns, etc).
2)Randal Schwartz's writing is extremely clear.
3)there are exercises at the end of each chapter. of course, if you want to learn a language to have to use it, not just read it. they do not neglect this important fact (like so many other authors). they give their own expert solutions as well. comparing their solutions with your own further facilates comprehension of teh material.

the only minus is i wish they added a few chapter on OO perl and references!

don't start with the camel and skip the llama. even if you are smart enough, it is faster to learn to walk and then run and to try and run from the start.

sorry for any spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, etc. although i spend hours on this book, i wrote this review in a minute or two.

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excellent introduction

Well written, lots of tongue-in-cheek jokes.

Answers to the exercises, which I find valuable.

I've been programming in C for over 20 years, have occassionally worked in perl (but don't know it off the top of
my head). I found the book very easy to read, and very
informative.

I think the book is geared towards an experienced programmer who wants to learn perl.

A REAL WHIRLWIND TOUR

If you want to spend some time learning Perl, this fourth edition of the book is for you. Authors Randal Schwartz, Tom Phoenix and brian foy, have done an outstanding job of providing you with a book that helps you understand why the Perl programming language is the workhorse of the Internet; as well as, the language of choice for system administrators, web hackers, and casual programmers around the world.

Schwartz, Phoenix and foy begin by asking you a number of questions: What does Perl stand for? How can you get Perl? How do you make a Perl program? And, so forth. Next, the authors cover scalar data, with respect to numbers and strings. Then, they examine lists (an ordered collection of scalars) and arrays ( a variable that contains a list). The authors continue by showing you how Perl can make subrountines, which are user-defined functions. In addition, the authors next introduce you to the workings of standard input, output and error streams. They also show you a feature that makes Perl one of the world's great programming languages--hashes. Next, the authors take you on a trip to visit the world of regular expressions, where you can forget about the world of Perl. Then, they show you where this world fits into Perl's world. The authors continue by showing you how to use patterns to locate the parts of strings that you want to change. Then, you'll see some alternative ways to write Perl code. In addition, the authors present a complete set of tests that are used by Perl to help you find information about files. They also show you how Perl lets you manipulate operations directories directly, in ways that are even fairly portable from one operating system to another. Next, the authors show you a simpler way of working with strings and sorting. Then, they present the inner workings of process management. The authors continue by showing you how to use modules that already exist. Finally, they examine some advanced Perl techniques.

With the preceding in mind, the authors have done an excellent job of giving you a real whirlwind tour of Perl. So, at the end of the day, you'll know whether this is the right Perl book for you!

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Single best intro - do not be fooled by bad reviews

This is the single best intro into perl. It's a small book but covers *ALL* the perl essentials in a straightforward way without burdening you with tons of details. I learned perl from this book on unix and on windows, and moreover it was a fine read as it happens to be well written. Don't be fooled by reviews stating it's for unix hackers, this is just NOT true. Although perl has its roots in unix, perl IS perl, it's about the language and it's the same for 99% whether you are learning it on ux or on windows - it's os agnostic and that's one of it's strengths. You need more details, you get some experience ? Go for the Wall book, the Friedl book on regular expressions or the perl cookbook (or just buy them altogether, it's a great set).

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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