Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginner
Review: The first edition is much better. This second edition is very wordy sometimes. Second edition has 500 more pages but the content is not twice as much. If you have lots of experience in programming, second edition is an exellent book for reference. Recommendation for beginners and intermediates: buy the first edition to learn core Perl, then buy specialized Perl books on CGI, Networking, etc... seperately, then go back and buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly designed to be the only Perl book you need.
Review: The Perl Black Book is literally the most comprehensive and complete book on Perl available. This book is designed to give you as much of Perl as one book can hold - in fact, at 1280 pages, it's not only the largest Perl book in existence, it was designed to cover as much material as any *two* of its competitors - plus hundreds of pages on CGI programming. There are over 1000 ready-to-run examples, and the Table of Contents alone is 24 pages - in fact, the publisher couldn't fit this book into any modern binding and had to go to a thinner page thickness. This book takes you every step of the way from the Perl basics to the complete Perl syntax, from client/server Internet programming to inter-process communication, from Perl/Tk to module creation. I really believe that there's more Perl coverage here, and it's explained and illustrated more carefully, than anywhere else. There's also more CGI programming here than in any other book I've ever seen - hundreds of pages of working, detailed examples from uploading files to server push, from using cookies to working with every HTML control there is, from automating your Internet work (like form submission) to CGI security, from client pull to redirecting browsers, from using multi-part forms to returning images from CGI scripts. The examples include a complete multi-user chat program, online shopping cart (two versions - both with and without using cookies), online user registration, working with server-side databases, FTP, site keyword searches, guest books, image-based hit counters - even connecting to usenet. This is the Perl book that isn't afraid to tackle the difficult issues which programmers want laid out clearly and in detail. It was truly designed to be the *only* Perl book you need - please keep in touch and let me know what you think, and if you want anything added to the book (I'll add it!).
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best Perl references ever
Review: This book can be used to learn Perl, the format goes through beginning topics very nicely, and then gets you working on tougher topics very quickly. However, I have found that this book is much more valuable as a reference. If there's ever a time you say to yourself, "Hmm, how can I do that in Perl?" or "What can I do with that function?" then this book can help. It covers a HUGE amount of topics, from the basics of Perl, to cgi, to network programming, to Tcl/Tk, to.... well, just about everything. If you need to learn something, then there's a good bet this book will teach you everything you need to know about it. Invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Great Reference for Perl
Review: This book is simply amazing, it is probably the best PERL book I have ever used. Almost any question you have about PERL can be answered in this book, from creating TK apps, IPC, OOP, and OLE Automation. The only thing that I wish was included that is not is info about creating WIN32 COM Components, but other than that it is perfect. I use PERL at home, work, and school, and this book goes with me everywhere! (I need a hardcover edition though! Mine is taking a beating!)
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, But Has Some Problems
Review: This book is very comprehensive and provides fairly in-depth coverage. It has one VERY SERIOUS flaw. Throughout the early part of the book, the author continuously makes references to future sections and chapters in his explanations. Every page or two there are examples that use concepts covered later in the book, which is very confusing to novices (I unsuccessfully used this book in a class I taught). I think it is unacceptable for an author to include "(see Chapter XX later in the book)" sometimes twice per page! This reflects a failure to tackle the challenge of how to "get a foot hold" on the information, how to organize the topics in general. Why confuse things by using topics covered in future sections/chapters? Why use regular expressions when introducing loops? I think this really detracts from the quality of the book. I bought it based on the recommendations by other reviewers, and frankly, because of this, I am disappointed. The author also has this ongoing supposed to be "cute" story about an imaginary dialog with a "PCC" which adds nothing to the book and is annoying. These can easily be skipped by the reader, but why include them? The book uses enough trees as it is, without this dumb nonsense. In sum, a complete and in-depth reference with a problem using "see Chapter XX" that prevents me from giving it a higher rating.
Rating: 
Summary: Great reference manual
Review: This is a fantastic perl book. It is very complete, well written, and organized in a "problem solving" fashion that makes it a valuable reference tool. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because in some areas the author doesn't provide quite enough detail about the BASICS that make the code work. I wouldn't recommend this book if you are an absolute beginner to programming, but if you have any experince at all, you should do just fine with this book. Buy it, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Perl-fect for anyone
Review: This is probably the single most used book in my library. I have not touched a single other reference book on Perl since I started using this book and probably will not again. Everything I need to know about Perl is in this book and most every question (and every derivitive) is answered in this book. I recommend it for beginners only if they read the first five or so chapters from start to finish. Even as an experienced Perl programmer I'm always learning something new from this book. This is how I wish all technical books would be written: comprehensive and engaging. Kudos to the author!
Rating:
Summary: Everythign I had looked for
Review: When I discovered Perl, I was a C++ programmer. I wanted to more easily manipulate textual data, and let's face it, cgi programs are just not the happenin deal when it comes to web apps. Enter Perl. At the time I bought this book, I had seen a ton of Perl scripts doing what I wanted to do, but Perl as a language seemed so foreign to me. The Black Book bridged the gap wonderfully, and it is so well written that I managed to read most of it on a car voyage from Louisiana to California (I can't even read some of my favorite novels while traveling). The book makes learning Perl a breeze, and it comes with a CD to check out any mentioned code you want (thought there is tons of code in the book anyway). The book and CD have tons of real world scripts that you can learn from and apply to the projects you are most probably already working on. I loved this book, and I think anyone who wants to learn Perl shoul start here. Bottom line: Probably a better learning book than reference book (although it is still a good reference), this book made Perl easily accessible to me.
Rating:
Summary: Know *some* programming language. Errors. Great reference.
Review: First off, let me mention right off the bat that there are glaring errors in the code (to a lesser extent in the text also), which to a someone who's following the examples is obvious (like the same code block repeated twice, instead of giving you the changed example), but might stump someone who is only half-way with-it: do not read all code a hundred percent literally. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense.
HOWEVER, this is to be EXPECTED, because this is a HUGE tome FILLED with all sorts of incredibly useful information. I am learning perl from this, but only by ploughing through the entire thing. (It frequently makes reference to future chapters, which is okay, because I know all about the kinds of programming structures that every programming language has, even before they're formally introduced).
A person new to ALL programming should NOT buy this book, except as a future reference. You MUST start out with an introductory-level book, whatever programming language, so that the idea of a function is intuitive, or the idea of a loop or an array. Even a "Perl for Dummies" book will suffice, but you will not be able to keep up with this one. It is a reference, a solid reference, a great reference, a brilliant reference in shining (black) armor, but it is not an introduction to structured programming. Use it for what it is, and it will become your bible.
I love it, errors or no.
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