Advanced Perl Programming (Paperback)

~ (Author), Srinivasan Sriram (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This book lives up to everything I have come to expect of the O'Reilly Nutshell series, being both technically accurate and highly readable. I would recommend it to anyone needing to extend or embed perl as well as to those wishing to move to more complex perl programming than they might be doing at the moment.' - Tom Hughes, Cvue, January 2000

Product Description

Whether your knowledge of Perl is casual or deep, this book will make you a more accomplished programmer. It covers complex techniques for managing production-ready Perl programs and explains methods for manipulating data and objects that may have looked like magic before. Furthermore, it sets Perl in the context of a larger environment, giving you the background you need for dealing with networks, databases, and GUIs. It also includes a discussion of internals to help you program more efficiently and embed Perl within C or C within Perl. Major topics include the practical use of packages and classes (object-oriented programming), complex data structures, persistence (e.g., using a database), networking, graphical interfaces using the Tk toolkit, interaction with C language functions, embedding and extending the Perl interpreter, and selected internals.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 430 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565922204
• ISBN-13: 978-1565922204
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #491,216 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A real outdated masterpiece that may not appeal to everyone, June 7, 2000

By	"ggarramuno" (LA) - See all my reviews

This is, as the title implies, a book for advanced programmers. You are not supposed to be reading it until "Learning Perl" seems really basic to you and when you are ready to make the progression from browsing "Programming Perl" (the Camel book) -a reference guide to ALL of Perl- to writing a real & complex application. This book serves then as an introduction to several complex topics (DBI, data structures, Tk, OO, & Perl C internals) and gives a better explanation in some areas where the Camel book falls short or becomes too complex (here the explanations are better, but don't expect full tutorials from A to Z). I warn you. It is the perfect companion to introduce you to a new subject while reading the online docs or other. You also might want to browse thru it if you are an experienced programmer with other scripting languages like TCL, Java or Python, since the comparisons at the end of each chapter is really excellent. As anything that was once considered advanced (and therefore, cutting edge), the book has aged. Things like the persistent data manipulation module presented in the book have since been improved upon by newer ones. Some of the TCL comparisons are not entirely fair anymore (although mostly still correct). Tom Christiansen's perltoot for OO included with Perl is a much better and thorough introduction than the one offered here. Also, if you are the type of programmer that reads every single little piece of documentation that comes with Perl, then well, you won't find anything new here --but some concepts that could have been unclear might be clarified here (the ideas presented are still correct, even if some of the code is not anymore).

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for intermediate Perl programmer., December 6, 1999

By	Igor France (Amsterdam) - See all my reviews

Normally, I would not feel the need to review this book, had I not seen the review:
"Why are there so many good reviews for this book?" by Eric Vogan (see above).

I would like to add that it is a great book and that it has thought me a lot.
Having mastered basic to intermmediate Perl, "Advanced Perl Programming" really took me further.
But as the name says, this is "advanced" Perl programming, and not a beginner's book. So Eric, even though you are a C++ programmer, you have to go through the basics before you try to use this book. The Preface clearly says what you are expected to know before you start with this book.

For beginning Perl programmers I would recommend the "Perl 5 by Example" and "Programming Perl", both of which are an excellent entry point to Perl.
But for taking your studies further, "Advanced Perl Programming", among others, is a gold-mine.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for serious Perl developers, September 23, 1997

By A Customer

This book is designed for those wishing to maximise their understanding of Perl; the text is suited to an audience familiar with programming technique (ample references are provided for those not familiar with the underlying issues). At the script level there are discussions of refs/globs and GC, symbol tables, OO, eval and tie. At the C level, extending, embedding and operation of the perl interpreter is discussed at length for up-to-date versions of perl5. These concepts are reinforced through examples built around databases, GUIs, networking and dynamic code generation. The writing style is clear and concise and clears up many common misconceptions people have about Perl. One highly useful feature is a summary comparison with other languages and the end of each chapter, contrasting the Perl functionality against Tcl, C/C++, Python and Java. This text is an excellent companion to the Blue Camel providing a broader view of advanced language features. An essential companion for serious perl developers.