I have to admit that I am not a Perl aficionado. While there are things about the language that don't appeal to me (this is true of any language), the truth is that I don't really "think" in Perl. There are other languages that are more suited to my thinking process.
That said, there are times when Perl hits a "sweet spot": a) it is available on for all Linux distress; b) it integrates well in the shell environment; c) it easily replaces multiple shell-based utilities (sed, awk, bash, etc.); and there are modules to interact with the entire application stack. It is a useful tool and I needed to find a way to gain a appreciation for it.
Enter Effective Perl. I was introduced to the first edition of the book some time ago. The company that I worked for was transitioning away from Perl, but there was a lot of Perl code still in play. I had tried a number of other books and just couldn't "get it". The syntax wasn't the problem - it was the change in context. Very poorly explained in these other text. That early edition gave me enough insight to read and understand some Perl. I didn't need much as we were moving to another language at the time.
Years later, I'm doing a lot of Python code. So, why even look at Perl now? Well, Python is going through a lot of changes right now. Some tools "prefer" 2.x, while others "recommend" 3.3+. Different modules work with specific versions, etc. A lot of what I do is administrative work. I have to assume a base level of tools to being work; and I do not want to rely overly much on the shell alone. Perl, warts and all, provides the tools needed, a guaranteed presence, and an easier integration path.
This book helped me to "think" in Perl. This make it *a lot* easier to write efficient code and (more importantly) to debug the code written. Does this mean that I will give up Python (and Ruby)? Not a chance. Both are better OO based languages. (Yes, I know about Moose. I just prefer the other languages in this regard.) It *does* mean that I can safely replace a number of utilities with just one tool: Perl and like it.
Perl has some warts, but it can be an effective tool in the right circumstances. This is an excellent book to understand how to use Perl - when it is necessary to do so.
ISBN-13: 978-0321496942
ISBN-10: 0321496949
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Customer reviews
Unfortunately the Kindle version of this book uses images for its code examples. These images aren't zoomed to page width so on my Nexus 10 they end up being absolutely tiny, like this: [...] I had to rate this one star until this error is fixed as it makes the book all but unusable for me.
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Top reviews from other countries
John Wrana
Kein Unicode und nicht als eBook optimiert
Reviewed in Germany on March 12, 2019Tim
Sehr gutes Perl-Buch für Fortgeschrittene
Reviewed in Germany on February 1, 2013
