The Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0: 7 Bestselling Books on CD-ROM Includes a Bonus Book! Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

O'Reilly & Associates (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596003897 | ISBN-13: 978-0596003890 | Publication Date: October 2, 2002 | Edition: Third Edition

Perl programmers increasingly rely on the Web, online help, and other online information sources to solve technical problems. Version 3.0 of O'Reilly's Perl CD Bookshelf gives you convenient online access to your favorite books from your CD-ROM drive. We've updated this best selling product with the electronic versions of 7 popular Perl books. Included are the second edition of Perl in a Nutshell (paperback version included), the third editions of Learning Perl and Programming Perl, the Perl Cookbook, and 3 new titles: Perl & XML, Perl & LWP, and Mastering Perl/Tk.

In addition to the reference material and tutorials in Programming Perl and Learning Perl, many of the most popular and useful applications for Perl are covered in these seven books. Many XML programmers are turning to Perl as a language for XML processing because of its text-processing features and the many powerful modules designed for XML development. LWP is the most downloaded Perl distribution in all of CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network). Perl/Tk is the most mature toolkit, has a wide community of experienced users, and is easy to use for building applications.

Never has it been easier to learn, or look up, what you need to know online. Formatted in HTML, The Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0, can be accessed with any web browser. The books are fully searchable and cross-referenced. In addition to individual indexes for each book, there is a master index for the entire library. With the CD Bookshelf, you get a complete Perl library that you can easily carry with you anywhere you need it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and galvanizing their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Third Edition edition (October 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003897
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003890
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,791,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars (Almost) everything a Perl Programmer needs, November 28, 2002

By 

Gregor Theis (Meerbusch Deutschland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0: 7 Bestselling Books on CD-ROM Includes a Bonus Book! Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

A review of this CD is rather problematic. Most of the books on this CD (as far as I read them before) are worth 4-5 stars. So this CD with online searching is worth ...5 stars... I will only comment on the CD version of the books and not on each single book (look at the reviews for the single books if you are interested in that).

Personally a CD with books is just an add-on to the printed versions, that I can read everywhere (bed, beach ...) and that I can mark in different colours and write on. Online books for me are for online searching and online reading of a few chapters.

This CD contains all the books in HTML format with a Java based full text search engine (works for me with IE 5.5 and mostly works with Netscape ... and an HTML based Master Index. There is a problem in the Master Index for the letter "L" (bad links, see Errata). Go to the O'Reilly website and download the updated file for this index.

Additionally to the online searching capabilities I really like the capability to use the WWW links to external resources directly from the CD (e.g. to CPAN). I think that the quality of the HTML translation of the books is quite high. It seems however that you need a rather new browser because we had some problems with Netscape 4.7 with the documentation. I like that all the links within the documentation are relative so that you can copy the CD wherever you like and still use it (even put it on your internal WWW server which is of course illegal). The size is rather small (60MB for all the books) so that you can put it on your laptop for mobil work.

You can find the following books on the CD:
- Perl in a Nutshell (2. Edition)
- Programming Perl (3. Edition)
- Perl & XML
- Mastering Perl/Tk
- Learning Perl (3. Edition)
- Perl Cookbook
- Perl & LWP

The book "Perl in a Nutshell (2nd Edition) as a printed version is part of the package as a "bonus book". I like it as a reference book.

Unfortunately O'Reilly did not put all its Perl books on this CD. For total happiness I am missing the following books (name your own):
- Programming the Perl DBI
- Perl for ORACLE DBAs
- CGI Programming with Perl (2nd Edition)

The price for the CD is not really low but compared with the printed versions of all the books it is reasonable from my point of view.

If you are a mobile Perl user I can really recommend this CD.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ANYONE who writes any Perl should buy this, April 25, 2003

By 

Tech Reader (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0: 7 Bestselling Books on CD-ROM Includes a Bonus Book! Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

I am a professional UNIX admin, and often do contract work.
I carry the UNIX, Network, and Perl CD bookshelves in my laptop case so I still have access to 15+ incredible books on the road.
Well worth the money!

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-have, September 3, 2008

By 

M. Berg (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0: 7 Bestselling Books on CD-ROM Includes a Bonus Book! Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This is essential. Perl docs are amazing and great, but sometimes you just need a little more info. This isn't just a compilation of books. This is a compilation of SEARCHABLE books. The great thing about version 3 is that the files are still in html and still fully externally searchable, unlike later pdf versions.