Customer Reviews

Perl 5 Developer's Guide

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is by far the best Perl5 book ever written. I have been puzzled by all those programming related books these days: with all advacned word processing techniques, can they "pretty-print" example programs so that readers may get the idea very quickly ? Who has enough time to go through all those examples line by line ? First, this book goes beyond such pretty-printing. Important parts in the programs are well-marked, additional explanations are typed in small cases and pointing to the appropriate places using arrows, related parts are connected using lines and arrows. When you look at the examples in the book, I don't need to go through line by line. The concepts are immediately coming through my eyes to the brain, by looking at the example. Second, the example programs are as good as in many other authoritive books (like Perl5 Cookbook). And there are so many examples in the book. Finally, the structure of the book is one of the best. One minor problem would be there are as many typos as in Perl5 Cookbook. But unlike in Perl5 Cookbook, I can ignore such minor typos, since I already got the concepts of the example program by simply looking at it. In summary, if you need only one book for perl, this is one. Also, I would recommend this book to anyone who has been embarrassed by Perl. An extremely user-friendly book for anyone who has any programming experience (ie. this book does NOT teach the basics of programming).

After reading snippets of this book from time to time, and being frustrated and amazed at how many errors in how many code snippets could get through the editors, I finally turned to this website to see if others had observed the same problem. The first couple of reviewers hit the nail on the head. The index is a joke. The multitudinous typos in the code have me going to my machine just to check my understanding. It's become difficult to believe or trust anything in this book, but like one other reviewer said "Maybe that's a good thing." The book could be used for a contest - see how many errors are possible when the editors don't give a damn. Shame on you McGraw Hill for allowing this book to hit the shelves - you should do a mass recall - send in the front cover and get a corrected edition. It seems that the authors at times really know their stuff, and could teach a lot, but this is all foiled in error, after error, after error. I just got done reading a two page spread that had five code snippets - I believe three of these had serious printout errors. (I haven't confirmed this yet, but I'm getting tired of incorrect code.) Fire the editors, or whomever rushed this book to print, just to get shelf space - what a sad statement on American publishing - get that shelf space - I think that person should get out of publishing and go to work for Coca-Cola or Pepsi and let the book world alone. Terrible business practice. The other reviewers who give this a five star review are probably friends of the authors - sorry, guys, but this book with this edition should be trashed - it reminds me of the poor quality that TAB books used to put out - BTW, weren't they purchased by McGraw-Hill a number of years ago - could the same marketeers still be there - RECALL THIS BOOK MCGRAW HILL IF YOU HAVE ANY DECENCY - CONGRESS WOULD FORCE YOU TOO IF YOU WERE MANUFACTURING CARS!

I feel very strongly that the publishers of this book should provide an errata sheet as the sheer quantity of errors completely spoils an otherwise excellent book. This was the first book I bought on Perl and it had me very confused, though as other reviewers have noted figuring out the errors for myself probably improved my understanding. To McGraw-Hill - can I have a discount on the next edition?

EDITORS WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!! I think that the editors of this book should find another job - this book is full of typos and errors.

Other than that this would be a great book (probably five stars if it had a better index).

Anyway the material, the pace, and the writing style are all to my liking. Probably not great if you haven't already had some programming experience.

I hope the next edition fixes the pile o' errors.

Yes, it's quite a good book for beginners to advanced Perl hackers. But this first edition should have been published so hastly. There are errors as many as 3 times in a page! Sometimes the error is so critical that it should make beginners frustrated easily. Be cautious!

If you are wanting to learn perl, this book will help you do that. It jumps in quickly into how to code perl, so be prepared. If you have coded C++, then this perl won't be that hard with this book. However, if you've never programmed before, then this is not the book for you.

Once I had learned perl, I found this book to be a 500 page paper weight. It does little good as a reference.

Review no. 25 has it wrong about the recursive function; the program on Page 151 is NOT an infinite loop. I committed an error in trying out that recursive function. Given the number of errors in the book, it was easy to assume that it was a typographical error! I have read more of the book now and the density of errors actually decreases in the latter half of the book. I am therefore increasing the number of stars to three (from two).

I have read through a good portion of the book - however, I am not new to Perl. This book is riddled with errors. For instance, take a look at the function simple_recursion on page 151. This is an infinite loop! On page 216, the author talks about dereferencing complex data structures and describes (very poorly, I might add) - three rules, numbered 1,2 and 3. And then he refers to the nonexistent rules No.4 and No. 2b on page 218! These are just a couple of instances that I have mentioned here. Virtually every page has such errors that it really takes the joy out of learning new concepts. If you are new to perl, stay away from this book. Pick a copy of the Llama book, or better yet, buy the PERL CD bookshelf. Read the Llama book first, cover to cover. I am giving this two stars - because there is some good in it if you read it in conjunction with the Perl CD bookshelf. I really think that McGraw Hill should give the (corrected) second edition free to those who unwittingly bought a copy of the first edition.

I am currently using "Perl 5 Complete" as a first exposure to Perl. The problem I have with recommending the book is that many examples that I work with do not run because of typos. What makes matters worse is that there does not seem to be any way of obtaining an errata sheet! I have contacted both the authors and the publishing company to no avail. Who takes responsibility?

Echo the same comments: + good raw material. Coverage on OO is very good, not just for Perl programmers but anyone interested in OO. One of the better intro to OO I've seen. - Yes, Index section sucks (editors are falling asleep on their jobs) - Yes, lots of errors (editors are falling...)

Just by focusing on fixing the two minuses will make the next edition one of the better Perl books.

Also, next to nothing in terms of coverage of OS interaction, networking, etc. Granted the book is pretty thick as it is, but calling it a "complete" reference is a bit of a stretch, IMO.