Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners
Review: This book isn't meant for advanced PERL programmers. But it was perfect for me, at the time I bought it and read it (fall 96), it really helped out with my knowledge of perl. If there was only one thing I wished it did have more of, was more longer scripts and real-world scripts. But other than that, I thought this book mas pretty good.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, teaching the entire Perl language
Review: I thought Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 Days was a great book. Don't worry about not understanding anything - it's all very easy to understand and the examples are very well described line by line. I did not rate this book a 10, however, because it fell short on it's claim to teach CGI scripting. Well, I think it must have been talking about the CD, but I think they designed the cover to look like that information was included in the text of the book. Get Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 days if you want to learn Perl. It is an excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Gets you started
Review: This book is a pretty good reference. It will help you learn PERL, which is actually pretty easy. The first fourteen chapters are excellent introductions to the basics of PERL. The last seven are simply awful attempts to teach more advanced topics. If you are a compotent programmer who needs to learn the basics of PERL in a hurry to convert a shell script, this book isn't bad. If you want to become "Just another PERL hacker," you'll have to look further. TMTOWTDI, but this is not one of them.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much, too inaccurate, too old
Review: This must be the most verbose perl I've ever seen written. It looks as if the author really wants to use C instead, and avoids using everything that makes perl worth using.
What really bugs me about this, is that the presentation makes Perl look like a language with lots and lots of misfeatures and useless constructs. If this book was the only thing I'd ever read about Perl, I wouldn't see any point in learning the language. Yes, Perl has its warts, but this book presents it as *all* warts.
The book is an update of the version written for Perl 4, and it's just too many old and stupid mistakes left to take this book seriously.
Examples don't work as advertised, the listings have obvious syntax errors, and things are done in a long-winded and impractical way
This is definitely not the worst perl book ever written, and there's some good stuff in it. If you like being explained everything in the minutest detail, you might like the presentation and bear over with all the errors. You'll get better value for your money elsewhere, though.
I have written a rather long review of this book. Look at
http://www.eiscat.uit.no/people/tom/TYP21D.html
for the full story.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good for begginers and as a refernece!
Review: This book helped me learn perl in three days.It is true that you don't need to have programming experience to read this book but if you have you can read it in less than 21 days,although it is about 800 pages.The many examples are explained in detail and make it ideal for beginners.You can also have it as a reference which means that you don't have to buy another book later.But don't let the cover phrase "Explore techniques for CGI and server side scripting" deceive you.This book doesn't say anything about CGI.However is ideal for learning perl
Rating:
Summary: A good book to read
Review: This a good book to read if you want to study PERL Language. It's clear step by step explanation just fits right for beginners like me! And not only does it covers the basic, it also covers more advanced techniques. I think everyone can use this book both as a beginner's guide and a nutshell reference. Even my experienced colleagues still refer to this book whenever they find troubles in PERL programming. I recommend this book to those who want to get their hands on PERL. It might be a little bit too thick, but worth the money and time you spend to buy and read it..
Rating:
Summary: Great Book For Those With Previous Programming Knowledge.
Review: It seems many people want to learn programming in 10 minutes. This book will teach you Perl in 21 DAYS not minutes. Learning anything will take some effort on your part. If you're not willing to do it, then don't blame it on the author. If you are a total newbie (hey whats Tar?) then you should get "Instant Web Scripts with CGI/Perl" By Selena Sol and Gunther Berznieks. This is the PERFECT newbie book - it outlines all of the typical questions. It will not make you a Perl programmer, but it will teach you the basics. You will want to pick up a copy of Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 Days to learn Perl. The Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 Days book is very handy for reference - just flip to the index and it will be there.
A big 10x to David Till for a great book
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Bad
Review: After getting hoodwinked into thinking this was a SOFTWARE PROGRAM to help you learn how to write perl, I tried reading it. (I couldn't return the book-- it was packaged as software and had already been opened)
I am a technical writer by trade. Please, Mr. Till. Hire me! Hire someone! You're probably a good programmer, but you know nothing about approaching the subject from the beginner's side.
The Introductory chapter discusses headers-- a topic WAY too advanced to start with for the kind of user this book supposes to teach. (Should be included in the book, just not so soon.)
I've found the O'Reilly books (Programming Perl and Learning Perl) to be good material if you already know the language, but they don't offer a beginner's approach. Fortunately, they don't pretend to be beginner's books, as this mess did.
Overall, a pretty poor book, really messed-up packaging/marketing. Turned me off of Sams' books for a while, at least.
Rating:
Summary: Not all it's cracked up to be!
Review: Well the cover says "EXPLORE techniques for CGI and server-side scripting". Not a thing in the book about writing CGI scripts except a reference to a web page. The book will make you a qualified Perl beginner in 21 days. If you want to do serious Perl programming stay away from this one!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent choice!!
Review: The format and style of this book is excellent. I've only
read one other book in the Sams series and was equally
impressed! If you're just getting started, this is where
you want to be!!!
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