Customer Reviews

Perl 6 Now: The Core Ideas Illustrated with Perl 5 (Expert's Voice in Open Source)

5 star:		(3)
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Hi everyone!

Here's some trivia you might not otherwise find, and then I'm going to try to clear up exactly what this book *is*.

25% of the royalties on sales of this title have been pledged to the Electronic Frountier Foundation and The Perl Foundation. These two organizations have shaped the world for the better for those of us who love to express ourselves creatively using computers and the 'Net. Being a hacker wouldn't be the same without cryptography or Perl.

http://perl6now.com has a sample chapter, Multidimensional Arrays, which talks about PDL, the Perl Data Language, and doing vectorized operations on light weight, storage efficient large arrays. It also has all of the frontmatter including the Introduction and detailed Table of Contents. The Introduction is the best explanation of the book. There's also a link to my blog and other goodies.

Perl steals madly from other languagers (and always has); Perl 6 stole the coolest batch of features yet; _Perl 6 Now_ introduces these bizarre, alien, potent ideas using Perl 5 CPAN implementations and nearly 800 code listings.

First, it's a decidedly a Perl 5 book. It's about language features recently introduced in Perl 5, language features implemented as CPAN modules that intentionally or coincidentally parallel Perl 6's new features, and it's about advanced use of Perl 5's features to do things that Perl 6 tries to streamline or generalize to put into common reach. Perl 6's syntax will make learning Perl easier for novices but learning a new syntax just plain isn't that interesting to most of us. There are Perl 6 syntax examples but these are secondary to the introduction of the idea that spurred the change. Every idea included has a Perl 5 implementation. There is no hand-waving. Everything works in Perl 5 and everything is relavent to Perl 5. Making so many of Perl 6's ideas work on Perl 5 is no small task - this book contains hundreds of hacks, module demonstrations, tricks, and so on. This isn't a book on Parrot and it's not a book on PONIE (yet, though hopefully a second edition will do better). It only teaches how to incorporate the best parts of most of the languages on Earth to write some seriously mental Perl. If you enjoyed _Object Oriented Perl_, this book is for you.

-scott

P.S.: I wish I could blog here without rating the book, but I can't. Sorry.

I'm a Perl dabbler. I use Perl frequently, but my code is generally clumsy and lacking in elegance. It does the job I need done, but people like Larry Wall usually go way over my head when they talk about how to do things.

That's why I've been more than a bit nervous about Perl 6 (it doesn't help when Larry throws around words like 'Apocalypse'). I felt, well, threatened.

Scott Walters book took me by the hand and gently showed me that I have little to fear and a lot to gain. I had read Larry Wall's explanation of Parrot and Ponie and had left still confused; Scott helped me understand it.

I was also happy to learn that I could use available Perl 5 modules that would let me try out Perl 6 features. Scott demonstrates the new features with code, and I could actually try it out myself as I followed along.

I'm sure there will be many, many Perl 6 books, but this was a nice place for me to start.

Walters presents his book for Perl 5 programmers, who might be eyeing Perl 6 and wondering if they should migrate. So the chapters are designed with the new Perl 6 features explicitly demarcated and usually at the start of each chapter. The book emphasises what is different about Perl 6.

But it is also more than for Perl 5 readers. The book can be read as a complete explanatory text on Perl 6 OR Perl 5, for someone who has never programmed in any version of Perl. It shows that Perl 6 is in part a competitive response by the Perl community to the presence and influence of other languages. Overall, this evolutionary pressure benefits you, as a Perl programmer, by giving you a more powerful language.

For me, the most interesting section was at the end. There's a nifty discussion of possible set operations, implemented in a simple syntax. Plus other more abstract computer science topics. Try exercising your imagination by perusing these pages, even if you can't see an immediate need for them in your coding.

Also - it was good form for Walters, in an earlier review, to say that he wished he could've blogged without rating his own book.

Perl 6 is pretty confusing no matter how you cut it. Scott does a nice job here of demonstrating the features of six. And he does it in a way that makes more sense than the Apocalypse stuff that Larry writes. If you are going to be using six as soon as it comes out then you will want to have a look at this in the meantime. It's the first book or article I have read that explains the new features in ways that I can understand.

This book simplifies the transition from coding in Perl 5 to coding in Perl 6. Common elements and themes between the two languages are demonstrated, along with an introduction to the advances found in Perl 6. Scott outlines a vast set of features using specific examples easily understood by Perl programmers of all levels.

Scott also uses humor throughout to make this Perl 6 guide a fun read. I especially enjoyed an example using pet washing to illustrate type checking (Type Safety chapter)! The expert's voice indeed - I hope we see more books from Mr. Walters.

This is a clever, well-written book that will likely put your mind at ease if you are anxious about Perl 6. Scott makes interesting and intellegent comments, and provides good code samples. This book should appeal to Perl programmers of any skill level, and is not as dry as most programming books. An enjoyable read!