Rating:  - A great book for mastering a great language - Perl
It's said I am one of the few people who've gone through this book among my friends. Yes. I do enjoy it very much in the past months. It's a long poem, which shows the wisdom of this language from time to time.
We may have to admit that the so-called 'value' is indeed the preference of people. Thus I'll free free to comment this book with my favor. I think this book is great because I like this well-designed language so much and ...
Because it covers everything you need or want to know about Perl - a perfect reference book.
Because it explains the thinking underlying the language - a philosophical book toward a perfect language.
Because it is so concise, saving my time, but provides sufficient hints to help experienced programmers master this language - a poem.
I like the apropos humor appearing everywhere in the book. It's essential to programmers' life - a good old friend.
And we, Chinese, think "Fish acquired, fishnet thrown away." If you do master Perl, no treasuring the Perl books. I believe this book would be the last Perl book I throw away.
Rating:  - Fabulous Reference
While this book may not be the best way to LEARN perl, it is the ultimate reference book. As a professional perl programmer I still keep this on my desk both at home and at work! View my other recommendations at http://www.cgi-guy.com
Rating: - A wonderful book, for the bright and patient
While I was still working my way through Programming Perl, I wrote on comp.lang.perl.misc:
"The authors aren't afraid to use a construct before they've even mentioned it, let alone described how it works, and at least some of the (mostly uncommented) examples are distinctly non-trivial. It's very dense, with a single sentence often expressing something that I'd spend a whole pp on, were I writing it for a programmer's magazine. It's not quite as slow going as some of the page-an-hour philosophy texts I read in college, but it's probably the closest I've come to that in the nearly twenty years since then. Definite perceptual bi-stability: It flickers between 'loads of fun' and 'intensely frustrating'."
Having finished it and having written more than a few Perl scripts, I find it an invaluable reference - I look forward to the day when I can write a non-trivial script without referring to it!
All in all, I found it a wonderful book, the One Book To Get If You're Only Getting One. I do think that the density of the book (and its free use of 'forward references') is a good preparation for Perl programming: If you can understand the book and its examples, you'll have little trouble reading any Perl you might come across.
But - as you can gather from some of the pans here - this book isn't for everyone. If you already know two or three other languages and have a deep-seated need to understand a language's semantics, buy this book. If what you really want is just to quickly learn how to modify some scripts you found on the Net, then this probably isn't the book for you.
Rating: - Great alround book
This book has not only developed my limited knowledge in perl but has been a great reference point. I throughly recommend it for new and advanced programmers!
Feel free to contact me regarding this book
Rating: - Not a beginner book, but a must-have Perl reference
If you just start learning Perl, don't buy this book. It is a reference book, not a tutorial book. If you are a serious Perl programmer, I will be surprised if you don't have this book by now.
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