Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl

Larger Cover

By Randal L. Schwartz

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: September 2010

Run time: 10 hours 44 minutes

Introduction 38 minutes
Scalar Data 48 minutes
Lists and Arrays 53 minutes
Subroutines 37 minutes
Input and Output 36 minutes
Hashes 40 minutes
In The World of Regular Expressions (Free Preview) 29 minutes
Matching with Regular Expressions 48 minutes
Processing Text with Regular Expressions 50 minutes
More Control Structures 57 minutes
Perl Modules 27 minutes
File Tests 30 minutes
Directory Operations 14 minutes
File Operations 36 minutes
Strings and Sorting 33 minutes
Process Management 46 minutes
In The Llama Book and More 14 minutes

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Table of Contents

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O'Reilly MediaRandal Schwartz on Learning Perl

4.5

(based on 6 reviews)

100%

of respondents would recommend this to a friend.

Pros

Easy to understand (4)
Helpful examples (4)
Accurate (3)

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Student (4)
Intermediate (3)
Novice (3)

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Reviewed by 6 customers

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3/8/2012

(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)

3.0

Leaves a little to be desired

By CP

from North Salt Lake, Utah

About Me Everyday Reader

Pros

Informative
Relevant

Cons

Difficult To Follow

Best Uses

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

I find the topic to be spot on, my problem with the video is that the slides are not on screen except for little blips here and there. I find that when trying to follow the lecture, and the occasional times the slides are on screen, I don't know what part of the slide he is talking about. I have to rewind, and pause frequently to "catch up".

6/23/2011

(4 of 4 customers found this review helpful)

5.0

Best.Video course.Ever.

By Ziltoid the Omniscient

from Mumbai,India

About Me Everyday Reader

Pros

Comprehensive
Easy To Understand
Informative

Cons

Best Uses

Reference
Student
Younger Readers

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

When I decide to start studying a certain programming language, I usually check amazon reviews and forum posts for a good book. With Perl , there was one name that appeared everywhere, Randal Schwartz. Learning Perl by Schwartz, phoenix and brian d foy was THE book to learn perl according to the majority of programmers. I bought the book(5th edition) and absolutely loved it. When I was almost done with the book, I saw that O'reilly had a video course available. Video courses are always an awesome compliment to a great book. This course exceeded every programming course that I have done(on video).

This is a near perfect video course. I absolutely love the stories Randal has and his way of presenting material. I advise anyone who wants to learn perl to get this course and his book because there is no simpler and fun way to go about it. Randal understands his audience well. He knows what a beginner will find difficult and he spends a considerable amount of time on confusing aspects of the language. PERL is not like any other language in my opinion. I really like how he explained and introduced Regular Expressions. Regex is something every programmer should know. I agree with the other reviewer who said the slides are a little difficult to read in some parts. Barring this, Learning Perl is an excellent video course and I would recommend this to any budding Perl programmer.

I can only hope that Randal Schwartz and O'reilly are working on videos for advanced programming in Perl. I look forward to them. If you are considering this course , please buy the author's book as well. Here are links to the course and the book.

Video Course : http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920014430/

Book (5th edition available at the time of the course) : http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520113

Book (6th edition june 2011) : http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018452

I received this as part of the blogger review program.

1/1/2011

(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)

4.0

excellent overview of perl

By david karapetyan

from Burbank, CA

About Me Developer, Maker

Pros

Accurate
Concise
Easy to understand
Helpful examples

Cons

Best Uses

Intermediate
Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

The video tutorials by Randal Schwartz provide a pretty good overview of the perl language but the lack of exercises prevent it from being anything other than a simple overview.

Randal Schwartz does an excellent job providing snippets of perl code to demonstrate aspects of perl and he has a good sense about which aspects will trip up the beginning perl programmer and so he explains those aspects more in depth. I think perl is known for a lot of its magic and weird implicit rules for operators, e.g. things like $_ and @_ meaning different things in different contexts, but Schwartz presents those aspects in small chunks and with lots of example code so the viewer doesn't get overwhelmed. Initially I was a little shocked by how perl subroutines and loops handle various variables because all the languages I know are very explicit about variables and arguments and how they are passed around but after a while I started to see the benefits of contextual variables and implicit operator rules.

I enjoyed the videos because Schwartz does a pretty good job and gives a nice overview of the language but I would have liked to have been presented with some exercises to try out on my own after each video lecture.

12/29/2010

(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)

5.0

Learn from one of the best

By Matt

from Ammon, ID

About Me Developer

Pros

Easy to understand
Helpful examples

Cons

Best Uses

Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

The course material was current and easy to follow. While the material was very good, I found that what I most enjoyed were the occasional side stories from this core member of the Perl community. These insights gave me a better feel for the current state of the Perl community and culture than I have been able to glean from web pages or technical books.

The only drawback to this video format for me was that in the presentation, the slides are not always visible on the screen when the speaker is referring to them. On more than one occasion I found myself rewinding the video trying to get back to the slide containing source code that was being dissected in order to understand what was being said. It would have been very helpful to have a copy of the slides or corresponding source code while watching the video.

Overall this is a worthwhile introduction to Perl that provides an excellent starting point for beginners who prefer classroom style instruction to just reading a text book.

Note:
In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free copy of this video in exchange for writing a review.

12/28/2010

(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)

5.0

Great Video for Learning Perl

By surachart

from Bangkok, Thailand

About Me DBA, Developer, Sys Admin

Pros

Accurate
Easy to understand
Helpful examples

Cons

Best Uses

Expert
Intermediate
Novice
Student

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

This video is useful who interest to be Perl programmer and take to be a Perl programmer. We will learn many ideas(techniques) about Perl on each of topics.

9/29/2010

(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)

5.0

Randal the Great

By Chanio

from Buenos Aires, Argentina

About Me Developer, Maker

Pros

Accurate
Helpful examples
Well-written

Cons

Excessive

Best Uses

Expert
Intermediate

Comments about O'Reilly Media Randal Schwartz on Learning Perl:

This guy is an excellent programmer in a lot of languages. And he is now one of the biggest perl evangelists. So much so, that future generations might mistakenly remember him as the creator of perl.

I am planing to watch the 10 hours videos and enjoy them. It is the best way of refreshing my perl lessons. His books are awesome, so if you enjoy the videos, do not miss the chance of expanding your knowledge by purchasing one of his book.

Thank you, Randal!