Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: I think Elizabeth Castro did a great job in this book.
I went from a completely beginner on Perl to intermediate. This book covers a lot of material and even though is misssing the HTML part of the codes, any web designer can figure it out by him/her self.
She explains the code and what it does, and that is something most of the visual quickstart guides are missing.
What I didnt like about this book is that it assumes that you are going to use a Unix or Linux OS when a lot of people are hosting under Windows NT or 2000 servers. The extra part at the end that talks about basic Unix commands and how to do simple stuff is very useful for the newbies who dont know what an IP is.
I really recomend this book to anyone interested on learning Perl for the WWW.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best nerd book ever written
Review: I was on vaction and decided to learn cgi that is the only book i have ever read on the subject and i have now written a chat room severall useful scripts i have an everychat add-on for the eversoft everychat and i am in the process of writing a forum (i am almost done... pray for me) This book completely set me in my ways as to what language to stick with and i love perl/cgi now anyone who wants to get started with cgi perl or just programmin in general should definately read this book
Rating: 
Summary: Good Introduction to Perl for CGI Programming
Review: If you want to add dynamic content to a web site and you're not a programmer then this book will give you a good introduction to writing CGI programs in Perl. It's one of a very small number of beginners books which cover important features like the CGI.pm module and "use strict". It even has a chapter about security which many books ignore completely. This book won't make you a Perl expert - but it will help you take the first steps. And it will give you a good foundation should you decide to become an expert later on.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good For Web only users of Perl
Review: If your interested in Perl programming for your web site...THIS IS THE BOOK. I bought Perl for Dummies which was good but too broad-based. It covered topics from A-Z, but this book is excellent for web users of Perl. Also you should get the Javascript Quick Start Guide.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good For Web only users of Perl
Review: If your interested in Perl programming for your web site...THIS IS THE BOOK. I bought Perl for Dummies which was good but too broad-based. It covered topics from A-Z, but this book is excellent for web users of Perl. Also you should get the Javascript Quick Start Guide.
Rating:
Summary: An eagle among the turkeys
Review: Last week I knew nothing about CGI or how to go about learning it. I've been in the computer industry for decades & am well aware how difficult it is to find a good book on anything to do with computer technology. As I browsed the shelves of internet books at my local bookstore, looking for something that would help, I have to admit I felt somewhat disheartened by the hopelessness of the task. You see, there were so many books on the internet and it seemed, each were 700 pages or more in length. (I looked at a few of them. Hopelessly complex.)
There wedged between two 100 pounders were two copies of Perl and CGI for the world wide web. By pure chance, I reached over and picked one of them, took a seat and began to browse through it. In no time, I found my self scribbling down web addresses mentioned in P&CGI until I came across the section on getting and installing a personal web server. How to set up your own little test environment. It was written in plain English ... and small capsules of information that could easily be understood. I was sold! I paid for it and hurried home. Within a few hours I was deep into the book, having downloaded the requisite PWS and set up my development environment. Everything worked exactly as your book says. When I uploaded my simple CGI script to my basic webpage voila! it worked there too! Now I know how marconi felt when first he heard the crackling of the radio signal coming across the Atlantic!
This is why I writing to you. I feel compelled to congratulate you on the marvelous job you've done in presenting this material. There are only two other books I can remember in my 30-year love affair with computers that come close to your book ... both were on PC-Forth. Yours is an amazing feat. A fantastic introduction that demystifies CGI, Perl and web programming. You deserve a gold star! <gold star>.
Rating:
Summary: Great Jumping-Off Point
Review: Many educational books lead you along a plodding path, and if you skip ahead, you find yourself lost in the woods. My motivation to learn anything is that I already have a practical application in mind and I want to gain enough knowledge to write it. If I don't have more applications on the back burner, I may well forget half of what I learned once the application is written, but I accept that about myself. The organization of this book was such that it was easy to jump back and forth through the chapters, getting a handle on the bits I needed to write my script. When I paused a few months, forgot a lot, then had another bright idea for a script, it was easy to dive right back in, using this book to refresh my knowledge and expand it a bit. On the other hand, if you're coming in as a stark beginner, you can go through it chapter by chapter while you build up the confidence to start bouncing around. It is mainly a survey of different concepts, without going too deeply into any. That's why it's called a "quickstart" guide. It's supposed to help you get out of the gate quickly and it does so excellently. You may find that once you go beyond simple scripting, you'll need a more advanced book to help you dig down into the guts of Perl, but once you get to that point, you'll find that the [ahhhem] dollars you spent on this book were a heck of an investment, because you'll be able to plow into those more advanced tomes and not feel lost.
Rating:
Summary: Great Jumping-Off Point
Review: Many educational books lead you along a plodding path, and if you skip ahead, you find yourself lost in the woods. My motivation to learn anything is that I already have a practical application in mind and I want to gain enough knowledge to write it. If I don't have more applications on the back burner, I may well forget half of what I learned once the application is written, but I accept that about myself. The organization of this book was such that it was easy to jump back and forth through the chapters, getting a handle on the bits I needed to write my script. When I paused a few months, forgot a lot, then had another bright idea for a script, it was easy to dive right back in, using this book to refresh my knowledge and expand it a bit. On the other hand, if you're coming in as a stark beginner, you can go through it chapter by chapter while you build up the confidence to start bouncing around. It is mainly a survey of different concepts, without going too deeply into any. That's why it's called a "quickstart" guide. It's supposed to help you get out of the gate quickly and it does so excellently. You may find that once you go beyond simple scripting, you'll need a more advanced book to help you dig down into the guts of Perl, but once you get to that point, you'll find that the [ahhhem] dollars you spent on this book were a heck of an investment, because you'll be able to plow into those more advanced tomes and not feel lost.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but a little too simple...
Review: The problem I found with this book was it's simplicity. It was easy to follow but it spent a lot of time on the basics of cgi/perl, and unfortunately didn't crossover into deeper waters. If you want to learn to make a guestbook, poll, or any other half-decent script, don't bother with this book. If you need the basics of cgi/perl it's a great place to start.
Rating:
Summary: a windfall for the freshman
Review: This book is not just another massive tome guaranteed to baffle the novice. Unlike other works on Perl and CGI scripting, Elizabeth Castro lets you test your own scripts by installing a personal server downloadable from the web. The chapter 'Unix Essentials' serves as a basic phrase book of Unix commands, a blessing for CGI neophytes like myself. This slim volume is packed with punch because instead of having to plow through pages and pages of enigmatic codes, you can check the scripts you write in the chapters by comparing them to the downloaded material. The illustrations are easy to understand although some prior knowledge of HTML is assumed. If that's not the case, you can use the downloaded forms as a beginning point for creating your own designs. In short, this condensed volume really delivers what it promises and is a windfall for freshman programmers like myself.
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