Customer Reviews

Perl 5 for Dummies

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this to learn CGI scripting and was very frustrated by the numerous syntax errors or even omissions from the code.

The CD had very little on it, it would have been better to knock $10 off the price and forget the CD. If the sample programs were on the CD, he might have bothered to actually try them. Instead it seems he wrote them off the top of his head and never bothered to test them.

I suppose the techinical editor is partially to blame for letting these by. If you a beginner, skip this book, it'll only frustrate you.

I learned how to program perl with this book, having no previous experience in programming. I have since gone on to other languages, but I never would have gotten started if I hadn't read Perl5 for Dummies. Why, oh, why take it out of print?

I never thought that learning Perl could be so simpl

This book is excellent, if they sold it as a necklace at a jewelry store for a million dollars I would still buy it. This book should be ranked #1 on your charts. The only draw back is that there wasn't enough chapters on CGI, so I had to go out and buy a seperate book on CGI. But I still love my "diamond" PERL FOR DUMMIES.

This is the best beginner book on PERL. It doesn't assume your running UNIX and that your not a C programmer. I'd recommend this book to anyone that wants a beginners view of PERL. And unless your already a C programmer, I'd really recommend this book before any of the O'Reilly books (It doesn't take away all the pain and confusion but it does help). I now own three books on PERL and this is by far my favorite!

I originally purchased the llama book, but I was forced to return it. I knew there must be a better book out there, and I was right. Perl 5 for dummies starts off with the simple stuff and gradually works its way into the more complex aspects of Perl. The organization is great, and the explanations are better. This book is a great platform to build on, but if you're interested in CGI, you'll be forced to buy another book.

If you don't know anything about programming, this book will give you a good intro before heading to the O'Reilly books (the first I'll read after this: Learning Perl, 2nd edition).

This Dummies book gives a good plain-English overview of Perl and general programming concepts. I didn't find the CD to be very useful (I got more recent Perl builds off the web), but it would be handy for someone who doesn't have easy access to the web.

The book doesn't go into much advanced stuff, and it could use some DIY exercises. But it's a good intro, nonetheless.

This book is very easy to read, and it gives good practical examples just when you need them. I had no prior exposure to PERL (I hadn't even heard of the language), and I'm now writing programs for numerous administrative tasks.

I didn't give the book a perfect rating because there are a couple of very useful topics that were completely overlooked or omitted.

I would recommend starting out with this book, then buying a second book to complement it (I also liked "Learning PERL on Win32 Systems" by O'Reily)

I often pick up books from this series when I am interested in something I haven't studied before. Usually I come away with a good basic understanding of the subject matter but in this case, I found myself irritated by the author's patronizing and supercilious style -- Perhaps he really did think that only dummies would read this book?

Perl is an elegant and beautiful programming language and is suported by a friendly and open community that works with Macs, Win32, and Unix. If this book is your only contact with Perl, you'll come away thinking, with the author, that many of its users are "Unix geeks."

Select a different book for your first introduction.

This is probably one of the best of the Dummies books. I found it very useful when I first started learning Perl, and I still refer to it eight months later. It's also one of the best Perl books overall; I have 7 of them (I have a very liberal expense account), but I use Perl for Dummies more than any of them.