“This is a fine book and a good resource for learning Perl.
The subtitle, “Code with Commentary”, is apt. The book is full of
clearly explained code. Studying such annotated examples of
practical code is an ideal way to learn a language or increase
one’s knowledge of a language. The author takes a
cross-platform approach, which is nice to see. Even though most of
the examples are inevitably UNIX-based, some code is also
demonstrated for fixing NT and Macintosh problems. The usual CD
with code examples is included. One minor annoyance is the lines
are terminated with “CRLF”, but I suppose it’s easier for Linuxers
to deal with this than for those using NT to handle bare
newlines.”
“The book is divided into four parts. It begins with “Text
Processing”, which also serves as a basic introduction to Perl.
This section starts by rounding up the usual filters, then examines
simple file manipulating, and concludes with various types of text
database work. After that, “Networking and E-mail” does a good job
of illustrating and explaining Perl’s excellent support for network
programming. Part 3, “World Wide Web”, covers the ground one would
expect: HTML munging and CGI scripts. The CGI coverage ranges from
simple examples to an entire on-line shopping application. Finally,
“Administrator’s Toolkit” supplies a useful set of tools for
systems and network administration. All in all, 11 chapters, with
over a hundred clearly and closely explained scripts–there is
nothing I can find fault with here.”