Perl for Dummies (Fourth Edition) (Paperback)

~ Paul Hoffman (Author) "Many people want to know exactly what makes their computer programs tick..." (more)
Key Phrases: file input operator, standard file input, employee database application, Larry Wall, New York, Chris Chambers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The standard for Perl books is, of course, Perl founder Larry Wall's Programming Perl. But every journey requires a first step, and the assumption that everyone interested in learning Perl has a programmer's background can make other Perl books inaccessible to the absolute beginner. Enter Perl for Dummies, a book that presumes that the reader wants to know only how to master the mechanics of Perl.

Just because it starts at the beginning--and we're talking about the very basics--doesn't mean that Perl for Dummies doesn't head into more advanced topics. Paul Hoffman explains the programming terminology and mathematical concepts that programming in Perl requires. He also moves beyond basic file manipulation, discussing pattern matching and using regular expressions. He touches on good Perl style, as well as object-oriented Perl.

He's not averse to criticizing what he perceives as Perl's shortcomings, but he also counters with a section called "10 Reasons Why Perl Is Better Than Java." Hoffman takes great pride in demystifying Perl--a goal that fits in well with Larry Wall's own philosophy of promoting Perl's accessibility. As a way into the "duct tape" programming language, Perl for Dummies fulfills its mission. --Jennifer Buckendorff --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

* Recommended by Editor, John Joyce for learning PERL(page 10). -- Scientific Computing and Instrumentation, Sept. 2000 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 4 edition (March 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764537504
• ISBN-13: 978-0764537509
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #48,381 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Excerpt from "The Perl Jounal", November 26, 2000

By	Ashley (Ang Mo Kio, Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perl for Dummies (Third Edition) (Paperback)

I am copying an excerpt from "The Perl Journal" review of this book.

__START__

Summary: This is a really rotten book. Very few books are able to attain as many as eight major flaws:

1. 'Dummy' approach encourages and reinforces the reader's disability

2. Lack of concrete programming examples

3. Lack of general discussion of how to program, apart from language-specific features

4. Reference manual organization style

5. Inclusion of too many useless and abstruse features

6. Complicated explanations where simple ones are possible

7. Scaremongering and panic instead of calm explanation of affairs

8. Many, many technical errors, some very serious

__END__

I taught myself Perl with little programming background (BASIC, 20 years ago). I started 1 1/2 years ago and am now using it daily as a web developer and data analyst.

Learning Perl from the books and resources out there is *extremely* difficult. There were many times I could've saved 3 weeks of hammering on a script if a perl guru had said, "Hey, list context just means the function wants a list, like an array or hash." I understand very well that the O'Reilly books are godawful for a beginner b/c that's where I started and suffered long from every explanation that said simply, "It's just like in C, so we won't explain it." That said, the books are pretty terrific once you're at a level to absorb them, but steer clear before then, unless you already know everything that POSIX means.

It might be tempting to pick up this book b/c there are pretty much no Perl books for those who haven't coded already. You should consider "The Elements of Perl" instead of this one. It's a better start for beginners and a wonderful way to start to understand Perl, its idioms, its culture, and how to program well. There is also "The Perl Black Book" which is a much better overview of the Perl than any single O'Reilly book, though the author isn't a guru, he's a good writer and tackles everything from the basics to advanced stuff with lots of examples and a CD with all the code.

Perl is wonderful, so please do pick up a book, just not this one.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great place to start in Perl., February 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Perl for Dummies (Second Edition) (Paperback)

As always, you have to be very careful with the 'Dummies' line of programming books, as most of them turn out to be terrible. This one however, is terrific. It did a great job of simplifying the sometimes arcane syntax of Perl, and explaining (at least at a beginner level) how some of the Perl features differ on Unix systems and Win32 systems, and even on Mac systems.

No, the book won't teach you everything; a Dummies book shouldn't be held up to that. When I was done with this one, I moved into the O'Reilly books to go further with Perl. This book will get you going in Perl much better than the O'Reilly Perl books of fame ('Learning Perl' and 'Programming Perl'), though. Popular opinion says everyone should be able to learn Perl from scratch from the O'Reilly books and that's just not true. They are colder, more rigid texts that will do fine when one is more advanced with Perl.

I've only come across a couple of great 'Dummies' programming books, and this is one of them ('Active Server Pages for Dummies' was the other). Get over yourself - you're not too cool for a Dummies book. Buy this one.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I know of for learning Perl, November 30, 2002

By	Kevin B. Cohen (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Perl for Dummies (Third Edition) (Paperback)

This really is the best book I know of for learning Perl, and I say that as someone who owns a very large pile of books on the subject. I first bought it when I started a year of full-time Perl programming, and it was the book that let me get up and running. Some years later, I *still* go back to it occasionally--there are some things that it just explains better than other books do. (In particular, it does a good job with some of the occasional dark corners of dereferencing arrays in complex data structures. If you know what that means: there's some weird syntax to this that this book gives very clear examples of. If you don't know what that means: trust me when I say that this book will tell you how to handle it without requiring that you completely understand why it's hard first, and that's a VERY good thing.)

If you're already an experienced programmer, you'll do fine reading the introductory material in Larry Wall et al.'s "Programming Perl," but whether you're an old hat at hacking or not, you'll get plenty out of this book. When you're up to speed, your next book should probably be "Programming Perl" or Nigel Chapman's "Perl: The Programmer's Companion."