Perl 5 How-To

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book with plenty of great examples.
Review: This book covers the more popular and usefull areas of Perl. The book contains great examples of how to use/do various things within Perl. Also all examples are real-world based. This is my most used Perl book in my collection, by far

Rating:
Summary: Good reference, poor "teacher"!
Review: This book is an excellent "do-it-yourself" CGI reference, but it has a few minor flaws that prevent it from being the ultimate Perl book.

First, this book is not intended to teach Perl or CGI scripting. Any novice would encounter serious difficulty trying to piece together the code fragments that make up this book.

Second, an experienced Perl programmer may find that the "code fragment" approach to creating general functions often requires extraneous code and added complexity. Still, the incredible comprehensiveness of the book make it a useful reference for generating new ideas and new approaches.

If you already have a basic Perl book, this book would make a great addition, helping to problem-solve more complex dynamic web page requirements.

Rating:
Summary: Good for Unix, dubious for Win 95
Review: This book is clear, well-organized, and has many useful examples, but the authors did not check their examples on Windows 95 systems. For instance, and this is not a minor point, they say that you can run command lines under DOS in the same way you can under Unix. Not true! Even something as simple as perl -e 'print "hello";' will not work. Because of this, the book would be far more useful for those working on Unix systems than for those using Windows. I am not sure if there is a better book available, but "Perl 5 Unleashed" does have the correct information on command lines.