LPM: Book recommendations

Mik Firestone fireston at lexmark.com
Fri Feb 4 16:00:37 CST 2000


I have recently become the proud owner of a copy of Dennis Conway's "Object
Oriented Perl".  For those of you who do not get the Perl Journal, this
book is a new offering that was very highly recommended in the latest issue.

Having read only a third of it, I would add my voice to the recommendations.
Even if you don't use the Object Oriented parts of Perl, there are greats bits
of wisdom scattered throughout the text that make it worth the purchase
price.  

For example, this book explains closures in about 2 pages in a way that makes
it very clear what they are.  This is a task I would have thought impossible (
closures being some of the darkest Perl voodoo ).  Conway then explains globs
in an equally clear fashion.  

Conway also does some very interesting OO stuff - like how to make true
private variables in Perl, how to bless scalars, overloading, inheritance,
etc.

The book targets a broad spectrum of coders - from the beginner to the guru
and hits the target very well.  The explanations are clear and concise with
very little hand waving.  But they are also just twisted enough to keep
the experts interested ( why, oh why, would you want to bless a scalar? ).

At the risk of being accused of plugging, the book's ISBN number is
1-884777-79-1 and is published by Manning.  The company is online at
www.manning.com.  I ordered online on 1/31/00 and received it yesterday - the
wait time isn't too long.

-- 
Mik Firestone fireston at lexmark.com
When I become an Evil Overlord:
My troops will receive special training so that they may shoot the tires of a
moving vehicle.





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