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Summary: Perl How to Program
Review: I teach Perl. Sure, the Camel is indispensable. But for teaching students, the Deitel books, and this one in particular, are best. Everything is step and step - everything is logically placed in order. Each chapter leads into the next. Hey, people. It doesn't get any better than this.
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Summary: Book's easy, setup impossible
Review: I think this book is probably a good book for those new to programming in Perl NOT for those new to programming period. I'll never know, because after a month of trying to set up the programs on the CD that comes with it, and others you must download off the 'net, I have to admit defeat. Every program needed has an online text bigger than the book itself, that have obviously been writen for I.T. proffessionals. I'm not stupid, and I tried very hard to get this up and running. To bad, because the book itself seemed easy to understand and well laid out. Just don't begin here. D Cocker
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Summary: Great Book - Really helps Programmers new to Perl
Review: Let me start by saying that I'm not in any way affiliated with the Deitels or the company that puts this book out. Having said that, I am a system administrator that has programmed primarily in Visual Basic. But I have also heard over and over how strong the Perl language is to perform all sorts of tasks. So I decided to shop around and find a book that would take me as a beginner to Perl and educate me on all the necessary foundations to get me up to speed quickly. I was more than pleased with this book by the Deitels (I've liked everything else I've read of theirs, too, especially their C and C++ How to Program books).This book covers it all, and I still use it often as a reference. I'm still by no means an expert on Perl, but this book gives me the necessary support and direction when I hit a wall. It's nice to have a single book that I can turn to for answers when I have questions. The text is very straight-forward, well written and explains the concepts very well and very thoroughly. There are numerous screenshots and examples for you to see what you're learning, and the end-of-chapter exercises are fantastic ways to cement the knowledge gained in the chapter itself. I'm not sure what everyone else is doing with Perl, but I can say that for every job I've done or am continuing to do, I have found that this book addresses the necessary topics and offers solid insight to help me figure out what I'm doing. It truly seems to cover every aspect of Perl (at least all of the aspects I've worked with so far). Whether you want to program for the web, or you're looking for a language to help automate administrative functions on the job, Perl is a very powerful language. And this book by the Deitels is exactly the manual you need to figure out how to use this fantastic language most effectively.
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Summary: FOR THE SERIOUS STUDENT
Review: Make no mistake, you are buying more than a book; this is a university COURSE in programming Perl. First, the peeves... Start with its price--$$$--grrr! No solutions are to be had for the exercises??? The CD is really mickey-mouse. Think about it...this book is written by "Educators" on "computer programming" and the CD is little more than 1st generation "acceptable"?! If anyone could and should do better...? Right. Now the good points. Super organized...logically arranged, easy to find info as a reference. Each chapter tells you what you will learn, provides terminology to learn, and the obligatory quizzes at the end of the chapter reinforces what you just covered...all the pros of a good university text! The page layout--font, colors, etc., are all utilized with great effectiveness. The language of the text is closer to a 2nd or 3rd year text. You are definitely not talked down to. I found the language to be in the upper level of my comfort zone. I had to slow down and think. What makes it acceptable as an introductory text is that the authors are very precise and clear with their terminology/definitions. It's all there in black and white but if you didn't catch definition A the way THEY defined it, definition B will bring you back. It can be rather slow moving at times, albeit complete. To be sure, more information couldn't be supplied in a text this size without a shoehorn. It is as complete and thorough as anyone could hope. The teaching method is to show a morsel of programming which you then learn by dissecting for understanding. The code works. It all works. Unfortunately you aren't given much opportunity to implement what you have learned outside of playing with the illustrated code (since the exercises have no solutions). I only studied up to chapter 15/23 (databases) and picked what I needed from the rest. [I needed to rewrite a program from Perl to another language] This book is definitely NOT FOR EVERYONE! The bottom line you must accept is that you STUDY it! If you just want to get aquainted with Perl code--perhaps be able to read and understand it, do yourself a favor, try another book--there are scads of em out there. There is nothing casual about this book but if you are willing to put in the time, it will reward you. I believe this book will become a reference book for me as well, without having to buy another. The authors have written other "programming language" books with the same Formula--I'm currently waiting for the PYTHON release. I only hope it lives up to this one. Overall an impressive text, but only for the SERIOUS student!
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Summary: Say that just one more time, in English though.
Review: One simple example will give you some insight into the authors approach when it comes to this book. I suggest that you look up just the "qw" function in the text. Not once does it even mention what the "qw" stands for (it stands for "quote words" by the way). The function is used to automatically quote words in a list and gives the list of quoted words as it's output. While the explanation of what the "qw" does is decent, it doesn't even get that part fully correct because the text shows "qw" working like single quoted strings on one page and double quoted strings on the very next. Well, which is it? I have to agree with other writers here that the text at times looks like it was authored by someone with a serious case of A.D.D. Not all of the book is bad though. It does offer a much broader view of perl than the O'Reilly Learning Perl books, but fequently the quality of the explanations seems a little lacking.
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Summary: Say that just one more time, in English though.
Review: One simple example will give you some insight into the authors approach when it comes to this book. I suggest that you look up just the "qw" function in the text. Not once does it even mention what the "qw" stands for (it stands for "quote words" by the way). The function is used to automatically quote words in a list and gives the list of quoted words as it's output. While the explanation of what the "qw" does is decent, it doesn't even get that part fully correct because the text shows "qw" working like single quoted strings on one page and double quoted strings on the very next. Well, which is it? I have to agree with other writers here that the text at times looks like it was authored by someone with a serious case of A.D.D. Not all of the book is bad though. It does offer a much broader view of perl than the O'Reilly Learning Perl books, but fequently the quality of the explanations seems a little lacking.
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Summary: A Great book for teaching as well as learning
Review: So far, this is the best book I have found for both Students and Teachers. If you need to teach a class on PERL this is one book you must take a look at! I you want to start learning to program, this book will use PERL to help you. All in all, another fine offering from Deitel.
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Summary: Author has ADD?
Review: The book over explains the simple and skips the intermediate to go right for the difficult. The topics were all over the place. It was like reading a book written by a child suffering from A.D.D. Myself, as well as 14 of my classmates, deem this book responsible for countless wasted hours of unnecessary studying of basic programming. Our time would have been better spent taking turns kicking each other!
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Summary: This is a *great* perl book!
Review: There are several good books on the market for learning perl but this text is by far the best. Not only does it cover the language in depth, the reader is provided with a vast array of 'screenshots' so the output will not be a mystery.Deitel & Deitel are publishing a book called 'Python: How to Program' this Fall and I have no doubt it will *the* text the python community has been waiting for ( and needs ).
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Summary: The best book for learning Perl
Review: This book is unique from other books in that it not only gives you examples, but it also explains why certain programming practices are implemented. This is the first book that I've come across where the information is very detailed. This is very important for a novice programmer like who needs to know why something is done. Unlike other books, I was just following examples not really knowing what I was doing. Don't waste your money and time on other books. Go with this one!!!
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