Perl By Example - Ellie Quigley

...I needed to teach myself Perl so I could use the language to program my masters project. It wasn’t a language I had any experience of, so I got hold of a Perl in 3 weeks book and took just one of those to learn the basics. When a books fair came to uni the week after, I bought a copy of “Perl By Example”, mainly, it has to be said, because it was pretty cheap and the only Perl title they had - it's not an overly common language like, say, C++ or ...
...books. After all the basic Perl details there are a couple of chapters on using the language with CGI and HTML, both of which I had to incorporate into my system. They’re common add ons to Perl which is why they’re included, but it also means if you just need a quick intro to either you don’t need to go out and get your hands on a different title – this book should do.

Each example is followed by a detail line by line explanation of ... more

At the start of this academic year it was decided that I needed to teach myself Perl so I could use the language to program my masters project. It wasn’t a language I had any experience of, so I got hold of a Perl in 3 weeks book and took just one of those to learn the basics. When a books fair came to uni the week after, I bought a copy of “Perl By Example”, mainly, it has to be said, because it was pretty cheap and the only Perl title they had - it's not an overly common language like, say, C++ or HTML. But, I’ve been using is almost every day since then, and it’s quite a useful title to have on my shelf.

“Perl By Example” is not a book I would recommend for complete beginners. It doesn’t feature tutorials or even appropriately lengthened chapters to treat as such. However, once you know a bit of the language, it’s a good reference book to consult if you need to know how to get a certain function working, or how to work out why something you’ve written isn’t behaving.

Generally speaking most computing books are written by geeky back office guys who, though technically competent, are often not skilled writers. This one is different – the author is a female computing lecturer from America – and so the style is different too, a little easier to understand than other titles, and a little less formal. None of those stupid chatty comments or jokes, but just a bit easier than some to read.

It starts with an introduction to Perl, a brief look at the history and information on where to download it if you don’t already have it on your system. This is followed by chapters on things like reading, writing, using files and various operations. Pretty standard stuff for computing books. After all the basic Perl details there are a couple of chapters on using the language with CGI and HTML, both of which I had to incorporate into my system. They’re common add ons to Perl which is why they’re included, but it also means if you just need a quick intro to either you don’t need to go out and get your hands on a different title – this book should do.

Each example is followed by a detail line by line explanation of the code, so you can follow what the segment does and why. This is pretty useful if you’re learning the language as you often need examples that differ slightly from the ones provided, so having an explanation of each statement’s working allows you to see which bits you need to alter for your program.

One review I read (albeit after purchasing the book) called it “the most well organized, "to-the-point" Perl tutorial and reference you can find” and this is a view I would second. For quick flicks, this book is great because you can get right to what you want without having to wade through mountains of text first – and the index is so detailed you automatically get started on the right page, not one vaguely related to the topic. For this reason, I found it more suitable for me than the famous Camel book (aka 'Learning Perl' published by O'Reilly).

It’s a large, thick book (roughly 700 pages) and liable to take up half a bookcase, but it has to be recommended, not least for its comprehensiveness – it covers almost every imaginable topic, and works with Linux, UNIX, and Macs as well as Windows set ups. Buy it on Amazon for around £25, or pick it up at a computer books fair for about a tenner.

Published by Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0130282510
 

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