Programming Perl by Larry Wall  (55)  £23.08

Perl Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) by Johan Vromans  (2)  £5.21

Classic Shell Scripting: Hidden Commands that Unlock the Power of Unix by Arnold Robbins  (4)  £15.99

Perl Cookbook by Tom Christiansen  (9)  £23.08

Intermediate Perl by Randal L. Schwartz  (3)  £19.95

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Amazon.co.uk Review
When it comes to working a little "behind the scenes" magic for a Web site or putting together a UNIX script which interrogate databases and produce reports based on the information they contain, there are few better languages to do the job than Perl.

Learning Perl draws on the expertise of two of the major supporters of this highly flexible language, Randal Schwatrz and Tom Christiansen, to produce an introductory manual which manages to be concise yet informative throughout.

Weighing in at a mere (for a computer manual) 271 pages it achieves admirably what it sets out to do--teach Perl basics and no more. From the introduction to the different variable types through hash arrays, file access, process management and coding for the World Wide Web, it's a well-paced easy-to-understand book which assumes a rudimentary knowledge of programming but no more.

With its multitude of clear examples which help to hammer home the many points made and set exercises at the end of each chapter, it builds knowledge rather than drowning the reader with information as many other books seem to do.

This is the first in a series of books on the subject from O'Reilly Publishing, the others being Programming Perl, Advanced Perl Programming and the Perl Cookbook and it truly is a great introduction to a language which is enthusiastically supported by developers and Web coders worldwide. Well worth a read. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Keith Schengili-Roberts, Computer Paper, Feb 2002
Easily as good an introduction to Perl as the first
edition.

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Programming Perl by Larry Wall  (55)  £23.08

Perl Cookbook by Tom Christiansen  (9)  £23.08

Perl Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) by Johan Vromans  (2)  £5.21

Mastering Perl (Mastering) by brian foy  (2)  £16.24

Learning Python (Learning) by Mark Lutz  (9)  £16.24

› Explore similar items : Books (46)

45 Reviews 5 star:  (30) 4 star:  (8) 3 star:  (4) 2 star:  (2) 1 star:  (1)           Average Customer Review (45 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   22 of 22 people found the following review helpful: i like it!, 13 Oct 2001 By A Customer my first encounter with computer programming was in 1990 when i somehow purchased a book about C++; c was almost synonumous to me with computers at that time and i remember making the assumption that ++ "probably means it is twice as good"! needless to say that other than impressing my dad with a huge book, it literally put me off computer languages for nearly a decade. i had a brief fling with java in 1998, but before i got through all the marketing hype time was up when my gf started calling me a nerd. i recently realized that i desperately need to do the simple things that i want, rather than adapt my needs to what is commercially availabe, and pay hundreds for the 95% of features i'd never use. i encountered scripting languages, python and perl, during my transitional conversion to linux, and the promise of something easier was thrilling, i got larry's (programming perl) and though having it for a couple of weeks i was unable to write any perl scripts, he seemed to go on and on and his "witty" remarks and "culture" stuff became irritating as i realized i was not going to benefit much from reading the huge book. i encountered this book - learning perl - in the local bookstore and the impulse was too strong to resist, i started browsing it on the toilet seat and found myself comfortably staying there for almost an hour, the book seemed quite engaging and the simplicity of it readlly made me happy; i simply felt "i can do it" regarding all the things that i wanted my computer to do. it strikes me now that i can adapt my machine to my needs rather than adapt my needs to what my machine can do through the applications i have. also the potential for an infinite amount of fun! (if u ever needed to spend time wondering which language to choose, choose perl; it took me a few weeks to find out, python is simply not mature enough, perl has CPAN and lots of source code samples on the web, python seems a bit simpler but to actually reinvent things is not at all convenient when there is aleady a perl module on cpan or some source code in a cgi repository site somewhere).. i hope this helps, it cost me some time to reach this conslusion so i hope it'll save u that.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   17 of 17 people found the following review helpful: O'Reilly does it again - an invaluable introduction, 22 Jul 2003 By  Ms. J. Anne Lees "voracious reader" (Scotland) - See all my reviews       This is how introductions to programming languages should be written. A friendly, easy-to-follow, sequential chapter-based approach takes the beginner through the basics of Perl, building up to incredibly complex tasks. A great deal of detail on regular expressions and their use has helped me understand them completely where other books (and a course at university) have failed. The examples are thorough and well-documented with model solutions, and the index is comprehensive if you want to use this book as a reference. It doesn't go into detail on CGI or object-oriented Perl, which the book "Programming Perl" covers in more detail, so if you have specific tasks to do then "Programming Perl" may be more up your street. If you're interested in learning Perl for Unix system administration or web services (or virus writing!) then tackle this book first - it's a brilliant helping hand to guide the unwary newbie through an absolute minefield.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   13 of 13 people found the following review helpful: Another good book from O'Reilly, 7 Nov 2000 By  Dewi Morgan (London, UK) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Learning Perl (A Nutshell Handbook) (Paperback) O'Reilly did it again. This one sits on my bookshelf now, almost never referred to. It was handy when learning perl, but since then I have tended to use the more advanced O'Reilly perl books. I finished with this one in a few days. After all, once you have learned a language, you do not want a tutorial in it, you want a reference. However, I cannot fault the quality of the book for doing what it says on the front: it teaches you perl, and makes that progress about as much fun as it could be in the progress. Like Programming Perl, I found I could read this book from cover to cover, almost like a good novel (well, OK, not exactly like, but it's a lot less dry than almost any other computing text I have read). I would not recommend buying just this book if you want to use perl regularly. Buy "Programming Perl" as well, at a minimum, since that is a more complete reference. But if all you want is an easy but thorough tutorial, you will not find a better one than this. It will get you up and running fast, and with a smile on your face.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (