Customer Reviews

Perl 5 Programmer's Notebook

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

$35 for 250 pages of large type is no deal at all.

It's hard to read. The typography is dreadful. Everything is swimming in a morass of similar typefaces.

Plus, it teaches the manual way of handling CGI form parms, without explaining why they work, or discussing CGI.pm.

The title "Programmer's Notebook" makes it seem like it's a reference for Perl programmers, which to me it's not. I'm not saying it's a bad book - it's a good book actually, but serves more as a side book. It covers the basics of Perl, very well in a friendly manner. What it doesn't do is get into a little more depth on each topic. The sample code is usually very short programs or code snippets to illustrate a point. The bad: there's no mention of network programming, references, OOP, databases, setting up Perl on any machine... even a hint of it would've been good, or a link. The humongous glossary could've had more than 8 words on it I think (it only has 8 words on it).

I think it's an overall good book. I don't suggest it be your only Perl book, but a side book when you're unsure about a topic and want to look up a basic concept. If you have a programming background, and want to learn the practical way, give it a shot.
If you know C++ and PHP, it will make more sense.

This book is pretty simple and easy to learn!