Rating: 
Summary: A terrific resource for Web developers
Review: I almost didn't buy this book after reading some of the negative reviews, but decided to take a look at it after noticing that none of the negative reviews went into much detail...making me wonder if the reviews were accurate or just the result of some kind of grudge against Mr. Patchett or Mr. Wright. I'm glad I took the time to look at, and subsequently buy, the book.With a few exceptions, I think most of the other reviews for this book do a good job of pointing out its imperfections. There are some inevitable bugs (corrected at the book's Web site), I wouldn't recommend it to someone who doesn't have any interest in learning at least a little bit about Perl, and it could use some additional detail on the installation process for the scripts in some places. That's the bad news. The good news, on the other hand, is that it is an invaluable resource for learning CGI scripting with Perl, especially for anyone who, like me, likes to learn by looking at actual code and having someone explain it. I've already used several of the scripts as is, modified one other, and borrowed code from several places to start building a custom script of my own. I think I got my $40 worth the first day I had it! Having spent some time with the book, I feel that somebody should address some of the issues brought up in some of the other "hit and run" reviews posted here. While it's true that the scripts are written in Perl 4 (which is backwards compatible with Perl 4), the authors have pointed out that this was a conscious choice on their part because Perl 4 is easier for the beginner to learn. I agree. As for the comments about security issues, I am familiar with the problems that were inherent with Mr. Wright's older scripts and these problems, as far as I can see, do not exist in the scripts presented in the book. Either Mr. Wright has learned from his previous mistakes or Mr. Patchett had a hand in removing security holes. Searching through the archives for the book's mailing list, I only came across one reported security problem in the last two years of posts to the list and a solution to that problem was promptly posted by the authors. One last thing that I really like about this book is the support for it that the authors provided by setting up a private mailing list for book owners. Not only do members of the list help each other out with any questions about the book's scripts (whether simple or complex), but there are also some great discussions on enhancing the scripts and adding additional features to them. How often have you bought a book and been stranded without any support? That the book's mailing list is going strong two years after the book's release is a testimony to its value. In short, I feel that this book makes a great addition to any Web developer's library, and is particularly useful to anyone developing CGI scripts of their own.
Rating:
Summary: Be prepared for a Do It Yourself Experience...
Review: I purchased this book in 1999 with the intention of developing my CGI skills and implement CGI programs in my website projects. The book does provide 20 usefull CGI scripts that one can fool around with, since there is a line by line explanation of all the scripts, I could figure out what makes it tick without having to actually learn perl. On the Good Side:
1. Explanation of the scripts, line by line.
2. 20 Ready to use sripts and a few subroutines.
3. HTML Templates for using the scripts.
4. A website with updates and a forum. On the Not so Good Side:
1. All the scripts are quite rudimentary, very basic operations.
2. You need to know how to configure the script to work in the server. This is where you will spend most of your time, yet little documentation on this subject is provided.
3. The website referred by the book is never updated. Overall, I think it is a good book for someone who wants to jump into CGI for the first time, is tenacious, and is ready to invest a good amount of hours figuring things out on his own.
Rating:
Summary: Great scripts, good explanation, excellent support
Review: I'm sorry, but I can't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't already know how to write the scripts themselves. They don't work "out of the box" and if you need any help, the authors abandoned the book's website, apparently, right after the book was published. I've been working on several of the scripts for over two weeks, they still don't work, and I have received no response whatsoever from the authors. Get "Learning Perl" or "Programming Perl" and write your own scripts. Don't waste your money.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: No you won't learn from this book because it is a cookbook and like all cookbooks it gives you the recipe. Even the advance user doesn't remember everything and this is wonderful to lookup what you do need. You may be able to find the scripts other places but this saves time which to me is money by having them all in one place. I have this book sitting with the JavaScript cookbook and they both get plenty of use! They make my life easier and I think the book states what it is from the cover. You won't learn "how to " from this book but I don't see anywhere on the book that says you would. A wonderful assest!
Rating: 
Summary: Good if you're needing some examples.
Review: One of the best ways to learn a computer language is to look at other programmer's code. The Cgi/Perl Cookbook fills this need. Although there's lots of free code on the web, I found this book, and the CD that accompanied it, to be very useful. Highly experienced programmers may find the information to be a bit too fundamental.
Rating: 
Summary: There are errors and other complexities involved.
Review: The programs are not really "ready-to-run." They are not "Ready-to-use." Programming is required, because there are bugs in html documents and scripts that must be corrected. The book is a good resource of information for people who want to study and learn and troubleshoot and learn Perl, because it is possible to get the scripts to work if the troubleshooter does not give up until they get things to work satisfactorily. I believe that it is practically impossible for a person to use these scripts without having some experience with Perl and CGI and HTML. The book has a lot of good explanations of code, which I find helpful and useful. I can't blame anyone for selling the book in the way it is sold. Salesmen sell the book. Programmers who successfully learn, don't give up when things don't work easily. This is book for beginning programmers.
Rating:
Summary: There are errors and other complexities involved.
Review: The programs are not really "ready-to-run." They are not "Ready-to-use." Programming is required, because there are bugs in html documents and scripts that must be corrected. The book is a good resource of information for people who want to study and learn and troubleshoot and learn Perl, because it is possible to get the scripts to work if the troubleshooter does not give up until they get things to work satisfactorily. I believe that it is practically impossible for a person to use these scripts without having some experience with Perl and CGI and HTML. The book has a lot of good explanations of code, which I find helpful and useful. I can't blame anyone for selling the book in the way it is sold. Salesmen sell the book. Programmers who successfully learn, don't give up when things don't work easily. This is book for beginning programmers.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid at all costs
Review: There are certain things that a Perl/CGI book should tell you. A short list would include 1/ using "use strict" and "-w" in all your scripts, 2/ using the standard CGI.pm module and 3/ using taint mode to ensure that and data you're reading from the outside world is what you expect it to be. This book contains none of those. When you add to that the fact that Matt Wright is well-known in the Perl community for being a very bad programmer you end up with a book that should be avoided at all costs. Sure, Matt and Craig explain what they know really well and beginners learn a lot from this book very quickly. But they don't know very much about Perl or CGI. What you'll learn will be full of bad code and misunderstandings about Perl. The worst part is thar Matt and Craig know very little about CGI security and running their scripts on your server leaves you open to a number of attacks from crackers. Please don't buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge a book by its cover
Review: This book is basically a poor product that has been successfully sold. It is terrible. It is a lie! On the back of my book it says "Jazz up your site with 20 exclusive, ready-to-use professional CGI scripts and subroutines--no programming required!" It is sold as if it will satisfy the needs of people who do not understand Perl, while it is almost impossible for it to satisfy anyone, as it is. Hours and hours of troubleshooting and trying to figure out what is wrong is part of what you will get from this book. If you survive through that part of it, you will probably learn that it would be easier for you to learn Perl enough to do things in your own way. Buy another book. Find another way!
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it, don't waste your money
Review: This book teaches you nothing. To grab a script and install it on your server? You don't need to spend money for a 656 page book for just doing that. You can download the similar scripts through internet for free even with manuals. You don't learn anything from this book. If you are novice in CGI/Perl thing, go for either Elizabeth Castro's quick start guide or to Jacqueline Hamilton's CGI101. These are the best books I have ever read on CGI/Perl. If you are pretty familiar with CGI/Perl thing, I recommend you Programming Perl of Larry Wall and Randal Schwartz to get even more advanced.
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