Rating:  - very good book for anyone new to perl
I recommend this book to anyone who is new to perl. The only thing I thought could have been better though was add more examples after each chapter. But other than that the book explains the basics very good.
Rating:  - An introduction to Perl
This book is a gives a gentle introduction to Perll; by the time you have gone through this book, you would have touched on some very simple operations and common language idioms found in Perl. This is not a comprehensive guide; on the contrary the book is selective about covering only those constructs and issues that one is most likely to face early on in programming with Perl.
This does not collect any of the more powerful feature in Perl like Reference; Data Structures; Manipulating lists of list.
I would not recomend this book.
Rating:  - Get the second edition
I learned Perl from the second edition of this book a few years ago, and was very impressed. After a few years without writing a single line of Perl, I needed to learn it again, so I bought the most current version of this book, the fourth edition. I was not as impressed with the fourth edition, it seems that a lot of the more advanced, and useful, stuff has been moved out of this book into the intermediate book. This book is missing a lot of the features that makes Perl a productive language. I'd try a few online tutorials first and then see if the intermediate book would work. Or, if you can find an older edition give that a shot.
Rating: - Great book
First of all, this book is only the beginning. It does teach the basics including arrays, scalars, functions and many other topics that are central to a basic understanding of Perl. It also coves regular expressions which aside from the great swatch of modules is one of Perl's greatest strengths.
Because of that and the teaching style this book earns the 5 star rating.
Toward the end it hints at some of the other 'required' topics such as references, modules and objects. After you've read this book get a copy of Intermediate Perl to read up on those topics.
Rating: - Enjoyable Read
The first thing that stood out to me about the book was the humor of the authors. The footnotes were not only informative but also good ways to lighten the mood of the book.
However, the jokes do not take away from the content in any way - you will learn a lot from the llama book. I always recommend the llama to anyone who asks for a book to learn Perl.
Now, this isn't an introduction to programming, programming basics are assumed (which isn't much to ask). But that's another thing I liked about "Learning Perl" - the authors give you the information you need with no fluff. Everything is straight to the point and explained clearly & concisely.
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