Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

I own an older version but when I read it a couple years ago it was the only way I went from knowing no perl to having a good knowledge of perl.

You should have some level of programming experience to use this book, but I think you can get it with some effort if not.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

Every other book I've been through to learn Perl never got to the good points; by Eris, I wanted a book with some meat on it! Once I found Learning Perl for sale at my local used book store, I picked it up and started thumbing through it. While a few examples of code were a little confusing for me, this book made learning many of the fundamentals of Perl easy. It also spoke to me as if I were an intelligent, reasoning human, rather than belittling me or trying to throw scare tactics at me. Anyone who wishes to get started with Perl should pick up this book! All it takes is a little Llama to get you to be one with the Camel.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

I do absolutely love this book and it helped me greatly, but I think it's important to realize the audience. If you have NO experience with programming anything, then you may want to get a better "beginner's programming" book. Having said that, I only know a little BASIC from several years ago and the book made perfect sense to me (after a few flashbacks).

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

This book was wonderful. With a schoolbook approach it helps re-enforce the concepts you have learned. As a mater of fact, the fact that instructors use this book for those purposes is interesting. I throughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone serous about learning Perl.

Jerry M. Howell II

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

O'Reilly is THE source for technical information. That withstanding, The 3'rd edition of Learning Perl took a step back from the second edition.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

Learning Perl is a must for anyone who wants to learn to program in perl. The excercises reinforce the reading material so you learn perl rather than just read about it. Another excellent book from O'Reilly.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

Excellent book for beginning Perl. Needs a few more exercises per chapter, but they are concise and to the point. Go through this whole book, then get Programming Perl, and Perl in a Nutshell as a quick reference.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

Pros: excellent introduction. Much hand-holding. No fear of missing the next step--the authors really teach their material very well.

Cons: Much hand-holding. After two weeks I've finished the book and I know I'll never use it as a reference--I'll have to buy the Camel book for that. While Learning Perl is a very well-written introduction that teaches a new subject very well, the lack of larger, significant exercises/projects and the relatively small scope of the book leave me feeling that something was lacking from my rather expensive purchase. (O'Reilly books are bloody expensive here in Australia!)

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

Like all O'Reilly books, stright to the point with

no waste of paper.

Comments about oreilly Learning Perl, 3rd Edition:

What a swell book! It covers everything you need. I'm coming from a Windows platform and everything still worked fine on the first try. Debugging is a snap. Its true that if something is wrong with your program in Perl, its because you really are trying too hard!

This book is a great intro to Perl, but it goes way beyond the basics. It makes programming in Perl an intuitive experience, like a second verbal language.