SPUG: Minimal Perl book released today!

Tim Maher tim at consultix-inc.com
Thu Sep 7 18:07:52 PDT 2006


SPUGsters,

My book on Perl is finally available. In fact, it's /so/ available
that you can even get two of its twelve chapters for free from the
publisher's web site!

As detailed in the brochure (see http://MinimalPerl.com), this book
teaches Perl to UNIX/Linux people by capitalizing on their existing
knowledge and skills. For example, the book discusses the matching
operator's features in terms of the grep/fgrep/egrep commands, and
it contrasts the syntax and features of Perl arrays with Shell arrays.

What's more, because this is not a book for beginners only, it goes
into greater detail on a variety of topics than you'll find anywhere
else (e.g., how to emulate the advanced features of the Shell's
looping facilities, and how to use "set -x" to debug Shell commands
launched via "system").

I spent a great deal of time and effort to make this book as useful
and entertaining as possible. For example, to enrich its value as a
reference work, the book provides nearly 100 detailed tables, showing
Perl's essential features and how they relate to their counterparts in
the Shell (e.g., split vs. $IFS), or in the UNIX/Linux command set
(e.g., Text::Autoformat vs. fmt).

Another unique feature of this book is its use of amusing "case
studies", to entertain you while you're learning Perl.
Here are some of the characters you'll encounter in the book:

* Patrick from soggy Seattle, a climatology data-wrangler who consoles
  himself by proving that Miami and New York are "rainier"

* Felix and Oscar, who respectively specialize in the fastidious and
  quick-and-dirty styles of programming and are in contention for the
  same promotion

* Ivan the stamp collector--who has to compress images ranging from
  scowling dictators to Franco Zappato's tweezer collection--to fit
  within the storage alloted by his ISP

* Diggity Dog, a rapper with a reputation for profanity to uphold,
  who "validates" his lyrics with Perl

* The wily Bell Labs veteran, who wins a $200 bar-bet by writing a one-
  line Shell script that calculates the square root of "pi".

Like other JAPHs, I'm very grateful for Larry's gift of Perl to us, so
I'm happy to have been able to give something back to Perlity by
making this contribution to the literature. However, I hasten to add
that I'm indebted to dozens of members from the Perl community--
including many SPUGsters--for their generous donations of time and
effort to act as reviewers and proofreaders for this book.

To get more details and to download the sample chapters, go to
the publisher's site: http://manning.com/maher

To download the brochure and useful articles containing material
that couldn't fit in the book itself, go to http://MinimalPerl.com

By the way, those who buy the Electronic-edition ($22.50), which
is available now, can upgrade to the paper version when it becomes
available in a few weeks by paying the difference. If you exercise
this option, you'll get the book in both digital and paper formats
for the price of the paper version alone, which is pretty cool.

I hope you like my book!

-Tim
*-------------------------------------------------------------------*
|  Tim Maher, PhD  (206) 781-UNIX   (866) DOC-PERL  (866) DOC-UNIX  |
|  tim at ( Consultix-Inc, TeachMePerl, or TeachMeUnix ) dot Com    |
*-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-*
| UPCOMING CLASSES; 9/18: UNIX/Linux Fundamentals  10/9: Basic Perl |
|  * Check out my new book: "Minimal Perl for UNIX/Linux People" *  |
|    See MinimalPerl.com for details, free chapters, and ordering   |
*-------------------------------------------------------------------*


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