Customer Reviews

Perl in a Nutshell

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

 

 

My 2-star review is from the perspective of an intermediate Perl user. From my exp. with 'Unix in a Nutshell', I expected this book to be all I needed in my briefcase at work. As it turns out, I'll take the "Camel" (Programming Perl) and leave this uninspiring book at home.

Let me give you an example: I was poring over a (slightly) complicated regular expression, trying to figure out what was going on...there seemed no rhyme or reason to it.....there were way too many spaces and yet the pattern was matching!! I then noticed the "x" option on the end of it: /reg-ex/x Thinking this could be the culprit, I broke out Perl:NUTSHELL...I found the appropriate table and it said: this option used to Enable Extended regular expressions. Ah-ha! But wait, what are Extended regular Epressions, and what is the deal with all these extra spaces in my reg-ex? I forwarded a bit and found the section about Extended Regular Expressions. And I found.........nothing. As it turns out (after looking in the Camel), the "x" means that all whitespace in the pattern is ignored, hence all the darn spaces. I made a point to look (again) for this bit of syntactic info in Perl:NUTSHELL, and it is not there. So what is the use of this book then, considering it is missing such a BASIC SYNTAX rule? Good question.
Another gripe: where's the freakin examples? While I don't expect NUTSHELL books to EXPLAIN the examples tutorial style, I do expect some basic usage examples to help me with commands I havn't used (again, see Unix in a Nutshell)!!

Another quick example for you Perl non-gurus (like myself): I came upon the Perl "filetest" operator "-t"....but the test had no following argument (e.g. the file's name), so I was confused. Off to the Nutshell. Oops. Nothing there except the shortest little description possible. Sigh. Back to the Camel, where I found that this particular file test operator defaults to a filehandle, <STDIN>, and not the usual variable which is $_ (perl's typical default). Hello? This isn't important!? Totally ridiculous for a supposed "reference" book.

In conclusion, this book seems to have zero "learning" value, being so terse (not to mention boring) and having so few examples, and only mediocre reference usefulness. Don't buy this one, buy the other O'Reilly books on Perl (Learning Perl and Programming Perl are high quality, as is Perl Cookbook). You might have to lug the Camel around (dromedaries are heavy), but it is superior to this inconcise man-page in every way (has a big reference section + a big 'learning' section).

PS. this is the 1st ed. Maybe the 2nd will be worth the money.

This was one of my first books after Learning Perl, and I have to say after using it for about a month that I'm having to go and buy other books. Nutshell does not equal incomplete in my mind, and something that purports to be a reference should be at least as complete as the documentation. A short list of what I've been ticked of by so far:

1) Less than 2 pages devoted to object oriented perl. I realize that probably less than 20% of all perl people will ever write anything object oriented, but I'm find OO essential for breaking down complicated problems.

2) Missing library calls; for example, in the DBI library: prepare_cached, connect_on_init really do exist.

3) Incomplete documentation of each and every library call; what are the possible values of an attribute hash? You better RTM, because usually you won't find it here.

4) Inconsistent documentation of library calls: sometimes they tell you what type the function wants, and sometimes they don't.

5) Lack of example usage in the libraries.

This is not nitpicky stuff. A comprehensive reference book should answer the purpose at least 60% of the time, or it becomes a waste of time. But, if you use this book first, you will *still* have to look at the documentation or another book, guaranteed.

This book bears all the hallmarks of having been hurriedly compiled from information available online, without expert review, and poorly edited. I realize documentation is a boring thankless task (better than Sominex for me), but nevertheless this book does not hit the mark.

Exactly as advertised, "Perl in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" is a great reference book if you already have a basic understanding of Perl. Although it does have a section that it refers to as an "Introduction to Perl" it is actually a pretty cursory introduction and there are better books for learning the basics of Perl.

The book does have an excellent section on installing Perl including installation on both the Unix and Windows platforms. I've worked with both platforms and the installation process is well documented including how to install modules. This brings us to the large chapter on getting and installing Perl modules. I have spent hours sometimes trying to find an appropriate module for a special situation. This chapter lists all the most common modules and includes descriptions of what they do. This alone makes it a valuable resource for anyone involved in Perl.

The authors also include a lot of technical information including command line options and environment variables as well as a section on program structure, data types, special variables, operators, expressions, subroutines, filehandles, and just about anything else that you might need a quick refresher on.

Functions are listed both by category and by alphabetical order with descriptions and syntax information. I had a couple of problems on a large project recently and it took three days to get an answer through the forums on the Internet. The answers to all of them are right here and I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had had this book then.

A lot of other information is available in the book including CGI programming, Webserver programming, database programming, SOAP, Network modules including Net, Mail, NNTP, FTP, and LDAP, Perl/Tk, Win32 Modules and Extensions, OLE Automation, and ODBC Extensions. This book will be the one I keep close at hand when working with Perl and deserves its location on my desktop instead of in the library. "Perl in a Nutshell" is highly recommended for Perl programmers from basic to advanced level.

I'd been occasionally writing perl for a few months without a decent reference, and have always relied on O'Reilly's _In A Nutshell_ series, so got this book. I think this did not live up to standards..

After an introduction to CPAN (online perl archive) and installing perl, the basic constructs of the language are explained in reasonable (for programmers) detail - data types, statements, special vars, operators, regex, subroutines, pod and the perl debugger. Some of it reads like a tutorial rather than reference, using paragraphs where tables would suit, slowing down ability to access info.

On advanced topics such as object orientation (3 pages), it faded into "throw a few paragraphs together". Occasional usage notes (e.g. anonymous subroutines for closures) would have been nice too.

A full function reference and alphabetised list of standard modules is given, with specific sections on databases, network programming, perl/tk, CGI and win32. With the exception of the CGI section (maybe thanks to its duplication in _Webmaster In A Nutshell_) they are usually little more than a list of methods/subroutines.

I'd advise buying the Camel book, and sticking to the online docs for modules and functions.

Like the other books in the O'Reilly Nutshell series, this is a very good desktop reference to have around. However, I have some small gripes with the book. In some cases the module reference doesn't talk about the caveats for a particular module/method that you might want to know about when you are quickly looking it up. The book could be better designed to answer what a user might be looking to know (and anticipate what would be helpful to tell them).

While I do like having this book around, as I have become more familiar with Perl I have found myself increasingly using the Perl Cookbook as my reference.

Many people are familiar with the UNIX in a Nutshell book that O'Reilly has published. These books cover the complete base UNIX Operating System (the commands with their parameters). UNIX administrators, like myself, went nuts over this book. This book was what we wanted, a good reference book that covered the commands with their appropriate switches without being a tutorial. UNIX in a Nutshell is the best reference book for UNIX on the market, hands down. Not only was the book a good reference based on how it was laid out, but for also being totally technically correct. O'Reilly has done it again, but this time with Perl. Perl in a Nutshell is not exactly what I expected from the book but instead it has a lot more to the book. The book was logically laid out by being broken down into eight sections and twenty chapters. The sections are Getting Started, Language Basics, Modules, CGI, Databases, Networking Perl/TK, Win32, & PerlScript. Going from the basics of the language to more advanced topics is a great design so the book will useful to many different people at different levels of knowledge and skill. As a previous college professor, I know that this book is perfect for the student and professional programmer.

The modules section covers the standard modules that come with Perl. Not only does it list the standard modules but gives descriptions with a list of the functions. Not to mention that it lists all the parameters/switches for each function also. For example, the module File::Find has two functions within, find & finddepth. The Perl/TK section lists all the standard switches and options for all the function in the TK.pm module. This section is also a great companion to the Perl/TK book. If you ever do any web programming, then the section on CGI is invaluable. Mod_perl and CGI.pm are both covered in the book, along with LWP. This book will be very useful while developing all my new web based applications. The section on Win32 Perl was one of the more complete listing of modules/functions for the 32bit Windows platform. Network programming will be a breeze with the quick reference of all the network functions, including things like telnet, ftp, and IPC. The whole book has plenty of sample code explaining the different aspects of Perl.

While reading the book, you can tell that the authors spent a great deal of time making sure that the book was easily readable. Perl in a Nutshell has all the relevant material in one easy to use reference book. What the book is not is a tutorial or a training guide. If you do not know Perl already, then you are better off with the Camel book (Programming Perl) or the llama book (Learning Perl), both from O'Reilly also. For someone like myself that needs reminding of the parameters/switches for various commands, the Nutshell book is perfect. This book is a must have for your zoo collection. I do have one negative thing to say about the book, and that is it should have been out sooner.

This is a handy reference, but if you have a limited budget you should probably go with Programming Perl and the Perl Cookbook before this one. This is a fine reference but it doesn't have the depth that the other books have and the information on the modules is available online through CPAN. I have the entire Perl library on my bookshelf and I hardly ever pick this one up.

I think this book is weak both as a language reference and as a source of tutorial examples. The description of the language itself is accurate enough but tends to only state the obvious, rarely showing those clever ways to do things which illuminates what Perl is so capable of. I think Programming Perl defines the language and how to use it well more thoroughly and includes far more clever and illuminating code snippets. Learning Perl is the perfect starting tutorial for those new to Perl.

75% of this book (pages 165-619) is just a list of the more popular modules available from CPAN and each of their methods. I would only recommend this book if you wanted this in printed and bound form.

I am not a beginning programmer nor am I what you would call an expert. Having a background in PHP made Perl easy to learn, so I didn't need a book that would "teach" Perl. All I needed was a good reference to figure out the differences between PHP and Perl. This book did exactly that! I was able to start programming within a day and I have referenced this book more times than I can count during my most recent development efforts. The binding is nearly worn out! I recommend this book to intermediate programmers that only need a small boost to get to work. If you're a beginner, buy this book to use after you learn the basics and you'll find it to be one of the most valuable tools on your desk!

This book consists of a 150-page Perl manpage, plus a big, fat catalog of Perl packages. It's great for finding out what's available, but once you've spotted your prey and want to make use of it, you may have to mess around with it for a while to get it to work -- which is where the examples would have been useful.

(Of course, if it actually had examples, it would be called "Ultimate Perl Encyclopedia Unleashed", be 1300 pages, and would put all the other Perl authors out of business. This way, we programmers get to enjoy our hobby of book collecting.)

Is it worth buying? Yes. But you'll need other books (e.g., Hall: Effective Perl Programming, which is FILLED with nice examples) to show you how to use Perl. And be sure to download or buy the Programming Perl Quick Reference Guide.