Perl: Essential Programs for Your Survival at Work: Book 2 in the Rosetta Stone Series for Computer Programmers and Script-Writers (Paperback)

~ Larry L. Smith (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This book, for UNIX-LINUX computer users, provides the beginner AND the 'guru' with practical, real-world examples and Perl scripts that make tough jobs easy. With this book, you can ... - Make your boss happy right NOW! - Learn a new language. - Master an old language. - Write scripts that solve problems. - Provide Quality Assurance. - Be a master troubleshooter. - Analyze logs, verify data. - Make tough jobs easy!

About the Author

Larry L. Smith is a summa cum laude graduate of Wayne State College (NE). He received UNIX certification from the University of California. He has worked in the middle of America (Denver) and on both coasts (the Wall Street area of Manhattan and the Silicon Valley area of California). He and his wife currently live and work in Sunnyvale, California, the epicenter of Silicon Valley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 684 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (October 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419648322
• ISBN-13: 978-1419648328
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,607,407 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost useless book, November 8, 2006

By	Wendy (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This is a book filled with scripts. Over a 100 of them. The pages look like they came out of a cheap printer. That's not a problem. The problem is, that there's no CD included with the book, and there's no website to download the scripts.

The scripts are supposed to be useful at work, for instance when your boss demands from you that you solve a certain problem. Granted, this book contains a lot of scripts than can be used in different situations. But you have to type them in yourself. And that costs time. You will make errors. You have to hunt those errors down. That will cost time.

The author does not have a support website and neither does the publisher.

The book does not contain an index to enable you to look up keywords. There's an index in the beginning of the book with the names of the scripts and a one-line description of each script. At first, this seems to be convenient, but the second day you want to use this book, the absence of an index, combined with having to do a lot (!) of typing yourself, combined with the certainty of making typos while typing, makes this book almost useless. It is annoying.

When I wrote an email to the author about this, his answer was useless. On top of that, he wrote another email, warning me not to post any of the scripts on my website. I have never received such an email from the many other authors or publishers from whom I have bought books.

My advise: don't buy this book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars husker programmer, December 4, 2006

By	C. Smith "golfer and gamer" (sacramento, ca) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the easiest to understand most helpful programming book I have read. It is a must have book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It helped me learn PERL!, December 3, 2006

By	In My Opinion2! - See all my reviews

I found that studying this book was a great way to learn PERL - actually, it has fantastic examples that let the reader understand the process of writing solid code in any language.

This is, hands down, one of the best "how-to" books on PERL programming that is available.