Customer Reviews

mod_perl 2 User's Guide

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Quite some books were written about mod_perl 1.3. The best one - in my opinion - being the mod_perl developers cookbook, by Geoffrey Young and Paul Lindner. Compared to that book, this one doesn't read like a Michael Crichton novel. It's not written as well and it doesn't give you the same level of apprehension. It has the structure of a guide, but more and more it reads like a reference. But as a reference it's not as complete as you would expect. It's not as complete as Stas Bekmans earlier book Practical mod_perl. In the mod_perl 2 User's Guide, for example, you will find how to retrieve the value of perlSetVar, but not how to set it and certainly not how to figure that out yourself.

But, it is the only mod_perl 2 book that's on the market right now. And it's great that there finally is a mod_perl 2 book. So I don't regret buying this book. If you're into mod_perl, you have to buy it.

This is the most useful of the three mod_perl books I own. It's succinct and thorough and suitable for a quick read-through to get up-to-speed as well as a reference while you're coding. "Guide" is an appropriate name for it as it falls somewhere between tutorial and reference.

The other two mod_perl books, the Developer's Cookbook and Practical mod_perl were worth reading when they came out but this one scores over them now in several important respects: this book is fully up-to-date with mod_perl 2 whereas the other two only address mod_perl 1. Also, this book is more concise. Practical mod_perl is over 900 pages and Developer's Cookbook is over 600 pages. This book is barely 400 pages but provides good coverage.

This book seems to be written for the choir.

I have no doubt that the authors are knowledgable. Perhaps too knowledgable to remember what it's like to approach this topic for the first time.

Little things like taking for granted that you will have a variable "$r" on which everything else you do will hinge. Um, where in the dickens did that little puppy come from?

The information is in the book. Alas, it was a pretty hard dig for me. If you're into the *nix culture it will be an easier read, but for the uninitiated masses like me it's likely to be a bit of a challenge.

That said, this book is the only game in town if you want to tap a really sweet tool to speed your server-side includes -- or about anything you script in Perl.