Games Diversions & Perl Culture: Best of the Perl Journal (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture is the third volume of The Best of the Perl Journal, compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of The Perl Journal, Jon Orwant. In this series, we've taken the very best (and still relevant) articles published in TPJ over its 5 years of publication and immortalized them into three volumes. The 47 articles included in this volume are simply some of the best Perl articles ever written on the subjects of games, diversions, and the unique culture of this close-knit community, by some of the best Perl authors and coders. Games, Diversions & Perl Culture focuses on entertaining topics that make Perl users such fanatics about the language. You'll find all of the playful features TPJ offered over the years, including the Obfuscated Perl Contests, Perl Quiz Shows, humor articles, and renowned one-line recipes. The book also contains a panoply of quirky applications of Perl, including genetic algorithms, home automation, music programming, and an entire section on natural language processing. This anthology is an unmatched compendium of Perl lore.

About the Author

Orwant is the CTO of O'Reilly & Associates and Editor in Chief of The Perl Journal.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003129
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003128
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,367,899 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some jewels and a lot of fluff, March 6, 2004

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a tome at 600 pages. But at 48 chapters each one is really small. This is because the book is actually a set of articles. Some of the articles are fantastic and very helpful. Specifically between 18 and 23, which cover text handling for stuff like smart searching and internationalization. Other chapters, like 37, which is about Perl Haikus, are really for the hardcore Perl lover.

For the average Perl user, check it out to make sure that you are getting the content you need. For the hardcore, you were going to by this book anyway, so why are you reading reviews. ;-)

5.0 out of 5 stars Casual & fun, January 26, 2004

By	Portnoy Huston (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is a grab bag of fun Perl uses. The obfuscated Perl contests are completely mind-bending - it's amazing what people can do with this language. The games material is a little light, but overall a good read.

9 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars High on "Diversions", Low on "Games", July 12, 2003

By	James Edward Gray II (Edmond, OK USA) - See all my reviews

First let me state that, as with most O'Reilly books, there is nothing wrong with the writing in here. Topic coverage at least goes deep enough on each article to let you decide if you want to go any further on your own. Some articles mearly cover CPAN module and there are better places to get that kind of material, I think. Coverage of Obfuscation is pretty substantial, if you enjoy that sort of thing (I don't). Still the articles themselves are solid.

Unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy the book, in spite of the above. Honestly, I think it's the title. I'm a big gamer who plays pretty much everything and I bought this book expecting to get some gaming content for my favorite programming language. (Note the first word of the title, "Games".) If that's what your looking for too, look on, it's not here. The book has four chapters covering game related material. The first mainly covers the game tool modules available from CPAN and that is sadly slim pickins. The second describes a contest the Perl Journal held and was one of my two favorite chapters in the whole book. The third is all about the Perl Z-Machine "rezrov", which is at least a little informative. The fourth is How to Build a TK Card Game. That's it, for gaming material, be warned.

The book mainly focuses on random aspects of linguistic theory, including NPL. If that's what you're after, this is the book for you.