Order Advanced Perl Programming
Item Description:
Review Synopsis:
Advanced Perl Programming by Sriram Srinivasan
ISBN 1-56592-220-4
Copyright 1997, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Capsule Review
Excellent book. 5 stars out of 5.
Who should be interested in this book?
- People who have a handle on Perl and are looking to become a super-JAPH
- Anyone writing production quality Perl
- JAPH's interested in: Modules/Packages, OO Programming, Networking, Tk, and Embedding
Full Review
This book starts off strong, given you the essentials on using complex datastructures in perl -- the ins and outs of using references every concievable way. This section in itself is invaluable, as it provides plenty of examples for the initiate to learn from (because we all know references in Perl can be very ugly if done incorrectly).
Advanced Perl Programming continues the book by delivering you great examples and equally good explainations. For example there is an entire chapter devoted to the uses and intricacies of eval. This includes using eval for shear power, eval for speed increases, and eval security issues.
The book covers each of the chapters completely, a list can be found here: Table of Contents. Overall I would highly recommend this to any would be super-JAPH. My only persuasion against buying this book is that is is not for beginners. Don't forget about it, but don't buy it as your first Perl book.
Another great one from Oreilly!
Cheers,
Gryn
p.s. Sorry for the blatant html copying splinky.
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RE: Advanced Perl Programming
by swiftone (Curate) on Sep 14, 2000 at 20:13 UTC
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I'm going to have to post in disagreement.
When I first started Perl, I got the Camel book, and had no problems
with the first half. (The latter half, discussing blessed objects, references, etc, went a bit over my head at
the time. When I started reading the Panther book (Advanced Perl Programming), I
again got the first half, which happily covers that latter half of the Camel book.
The second half of the Panther book was too much for me.
After a while, I started working with GUIs in Perl, and Networking, and I returned to the Panther
book, only to find that it was too skimpy. People unfamiliar with
sockets will not be able to program based solely off of what they
find here, while people familiar with sockets really only need to
have a few functions pointed out. The author has a tendancy to answer every question with parts
of a custom module, which don't address the question well enough to
give you an answer to a related-but-different question. The GUI section
in particular suffers from this. Programmers experienced with
callbacks and the like will need little more than a function listing, and
those that aren't familiar with it will not find the fundamentals explained here.
As I said, I learned a lot from the first half, but now the Perl Cookbook, and the perlman:perlobj, perlman:ref, and perlman:perlboot pages
cover everything in better detail.
You said My only persuasion against buying this book is that is is not for beginners.
Which is true. It isn't for experienced programmers either. It seems to try to bridge the gap, and fares poorly IMHO.
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I've had no formal network, nor GUI learn'n. Additionally, I hadn't seriously
touched either until Perl. The Panther along with the man pages was enough
for me to feel confortable and get through networking. I still have yet to do
GUI, but the Panther makes it seem easy enough.
I don't know if this fits or not with your description. I consider myself
an advanced programmer on certain levels (such as algorithms and program
structure), but a novice on some specific aspects (GUI design, device specific
programming).
But I appreciate your feedback, as it gives a good contrast to the review.
Which I admit, was a tad bubbly :) .
Cheers,
Gryn
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Re: Advanced Perl Programming
by sheridan3003 (Beadle) on Oct 03, 2001 at 06:16 UTC
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I would like to comment that the portion of the book on persistance and relational databases is very well done. This would allow someone who is familiar already with databases to quickly use Perl to make modifications to their database. When I was learning DBI/DBD I had a bit of a hard time finding useful examples. I would recomend this book to DBA's who are looking to expand their knowledge of Perl and possibly use it to assist them in doing their jobs. While this book is not an exhaustive book on DBI(there are other books for that "Programming the Perl DBI" is good for focusing on DBI) if a DBA had to choose one book between the two this book would allow them to get to work with database access as well as introduction to the other powerful things that Perl can do.
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Re: Advanced Perl Programming
by ignatz (Vicar) on Jan 05, 2002 at 23:33 UTC
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These days this book feels really dated to me in many places, like it's just screaming out for a new edition. | [reply] |
Re: Advanced Perl Programming
by bl0rf (Pilgrim) on Dec 26, 2003 at 23:35 UTC
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I havent read the whole book yet but the parts that I read really helped me get to a higher level of Perl. I knew sockets etc. but the reference section was very helpful.
I agree with swiftone on Perl having the single most amazing documentation that I have had experience with - reading the Perl documentation alone makes buying books an extra thing (instead of a neccessity).
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Re: Advanced Perl Programming
by targetsmart (Curate) on Jan 15, 2009 at 12:15 UTC
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I'm in the process of reading this book and read almost first half of the book, this is the book I have been searching for 2 years.
I recommend this book after reading the books like, learning perl, intermediate perl.
This is book is following a wonderful tutorial-istic approach, a must read and a must have book in your(our) perl library.
UPDATE:
I have learned to use the typeglobs effectively after reading this book.
I am talking about the book authored by Sriram Srinivasan.
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