[Za-pm] Recommended Perl Books

Sean Carte scarte at pan.uzulu.ac.za
Tue May 27 01:42:47 CDT 2003


On Mon, 2003-05-26 at 14:12, Bartho Saaiman wrote:
> I have found a lot of info with regards to books, but would like to know
> ~ what *your* suggestions would be to someone that is completly new to
> Perl. Have seen suggestions of the "Camel Book"

_Effective Perl Programming_ by Hall with Schwartz has already mentioned
in a different thread by Rory. I too found it extremely useful; it
doesn't contain nearly as much as the Camel (2nd edition) or the _Perl
Cookbook_, but I found it much more accessible.

If you're going to be doing any DBI::DBD development, consider
_Programming the Perl DBI_ by Descartes and Bunce. It also covers DBM
databases very well. I wished I'd found it before I'd started bungling
through DBM using tutorials from the Internet.

Oskar mentioned Damian Conway's _Object Oriented Perl_. I consider
Damian Conway the Jacques Derrida of the Perl world: I'm sure he's
making a great deal of sense, I just wish I could understand any of it!

There's also _MacPerl: Power and Ease_ by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor,
which is an excellent resource if you happen to be using Mac OS 9. It's
available online at:
<http://www.macperl.com/macperl/ptf_book/r/MP/i2.html>.

Ultimately, I think what makes a particular book stand out for a
particular person has a lot to do with where that person is coming from.
I felt that the Camel expected some previous (C?) programming experience
whereas _MacPerl_ doesn't even assume that you know how to use a
calculator.

The third edition of the Camel is now available. At 1092 pages, it's
nearly doubled in size. It must cover topics in a great deal more depth
than it used to. Has anybody read it?
-- 
Regards
Sean Carte

University of Zululand
Network Services Unit
Phone: 035 902 6081
Fax: 035 902 6028

"Mistakes?  We don't make mistakes." -- Bill, Department of Works




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