Rating: 
Summary: You need this if you are a Perl programmer, or think you are
Review: The subject says it all. If you want to code in Perl, you'll need to know this book. This, following Learning Perl, will qualiify you to be the Perl programmer that many people *think* they are or would like to be.
Rating:
Summary: How to buy books for a computer book
Review: If you want to make sure you have comprehensive, quality reference material on any computer topic, you should buy these two books:
1) The book written by the creator of the technology or language
2) The O'reilly book that covers the topic
If you want reference material for Perl, you're in luck, because those two books are the same book! On top of that, Larry Wall is a creative, engaging, and entertaining writer.
To summarize:
If (1) {
buy($thisBook);
}
#In case you don't speak Perl yet, this means "Buy the damned book!".'nuff said.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book to make one frustrated
Review: Hello Everyone,
I dont have any good comments to make about this book. I read this book and at the end couldn't summarize what I learnt. It only left me with confusion and questions. The language seems cryptic and sentences are convolved. I guess this is the book for Perl experts and not for someone who truly wants to learn the language. And I bet, its gonna create some confusions in an expert mind as well. To summarize, dont waste your money.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to read
Review: I am a foreigner, please bear my grammer. I read all chapters of learning perl before I read this book. I know C and some C++ and I am engineer and not programmer but I program by myself sometimes. This book is still hard to read for me. However, if you take the time and pain to read it, it will give a much better insight than any other perl book I have read. I really want the author to focus on one topic (not jumping around or even jumping ahead something couple chapters later. The examples are hard to read unless you know most perl 'in advance' (remember Perl is kind of 'magic', there is not much 'structure' like C or C++' and lot of implications make the examples hard to understand, especially the authors try to code the 'cool' or 'shorthand' way.) When I read it again second time, I can follow the book. When I read the first time, it was not easy (spent a lot of time to think what the author tries to say. All the important concepts are there. Instead of 'paragraphs after paragraphs' to talk about the concept, the author can just give one or two examples to illustrate the concept. It will be far better to write hundred words to talk about 'a few concepts'. We all have 'limited time.' I think if the author can make it easier to read, more people will buy this book. Anyway, it is a 'good book'. But it is 'not easy to read'. If you read through this book, you will get a much better insight. I strongly believe the author can make this book much easier to read. If he do so, he will reward with more audiences and more 'income'.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good reference book
Review: I find this to be a very frustrating and time-consuming book to use as a reference. The main complaint I have about this book is its astonishing lack of examples. No user wants to try to extract syntax from paragraphs of commentary. If you have the time and want to sit down and learn the "theory" behind Perl, then maybe this is a good book for you. Otherwise, look for a book with examples rather than expository.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for every serious Perl programmer.
Review: You want to know something about Perl? Larry Wall is among my list of 3 people that I will certainly listen to. Of course if you ask the three people I have in mind (Larry Wall, Damian Conway and Randall Schwartz) you will no doubt come up with three different answers. That aside, this is the book for you if you are serious about programming in the language dubbed "The Duct Tape of the Internet."
Rating:
Summary: Great as reference, terrible for learning
Review: I will keep this book for reference, but will go find another one in order to learn. They take a 'bottom-up' approach and start with ALL the detail. So if you just want simple examples to start with, you are stuck. You must read for hours to figure out anything. Instead of starting with easy stuff and building up, they just jump right in with all the way cool tricky stuff. As a reference book, it will be excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: If you know Perl, and want to know more...
Review: I am surprised that some of the reviews take this book to task for not being for beginners. It isn't for beginners; I would reccomend Learning Perl, 3rd edition (Randall Schwartz, et al) to those wishing to learn Perl. As to it's fitness for larger projects, I am working on a large project with Perl. As it turns out, Perl is ideal for some projects (large or small) and not for others, which is characteristic of many languages and environments. Object Orientation does have it's value (we do use Perl in OO style). On the other hand OO isn't, contrary to the pursists, the I.T. panacea they might have us believe. It's one more tool in the box. Those interested in OO in Perl would benefit from Object Oriented Perl by Damian Conway. The book begins with a wonderfully concise description of OO. In short, this book is great for what it is intended for: Intermediate and Advanced Perl users. I use it as a reference on an almost daily basis.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Book
Review: I own the 2nd Edition of this book. I am surprised by the number of good reviews I see here. Unless the 3rd edition is vastly improved, I cannot see how this book can be so highly regarded. I have many years of programming experience, yet I find this book difficult to read. In fact this book will actually impede someone from learning Perl! Many computer subjects are harder, yet it is easier to learn those than to learn Perl from this book. The book is poorly organized. The author talks about this and that, rather than keeping focus, giving clear outlines and demonstrating with good examples in a methodical way. Too much detail is given in disoriented fashion before a reader gets to become familiar with a topic. At times something is mentioned that is not covered until much later. There's no question the author is knowledgeable, but my time is valuable; it's just not worth it to have to read a sentence 3 times before comprehending it. A good book makes a difficult subject easy. A lousy book makes an easy subject seem hard. As a teaching tool this book doesn't cut it. Maybe this is why O'Reilly decided to publish another book on Perl.
Rating:
Summary: Content good, presentation and organization poor.
Review: I agree whole heartily with Jo Totland's September 29, 2002 review, and would add the following. If you can stay in the book every day, consistently, until you get through the book, it's not too bad (although, the flow is lacking). However, if you get four or five chapters into the book, put it down for a week and try to come back to it, forget it. It has also not been a very good reference for me. If you're working with PERL full time, you should probably have it. If you use PERL occasionally, you might want to borrow it first to see if it fits your style.
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