15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great material written by people who understand Perl, Jun 12 2010
By M. Stok - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl (Paperback)
Effective Perl Programming packs a lot of useful information into a slim and manageable volume. There is no "filler" material in the book, which assumes you are already familiar with Perl. I have developed Perl software for more than fifteen years, and here are the aspects of Effective Perl Programming which struck me particularly:
The book doesn't cover what has already been covered elsewhere, so the material is all fresh and the space is used to investigate topics in reasonable detail.
The focus on idiomatic Perl - the authors say: "Although Perl's motto may be "There's More Than One Way To Do It," the corollary is, "But Most of Them Are Wrong," or "Some Ways Are Better Than Others."" The book illustrates how to write idiomatic Perl from the choice of language construct through to testing code and using CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive) effectively.
The authors demonstrate a deep understanding of Perl, and have clearly honed their examples and explanations. Well explained areas include: list vs. array, context, local vs. my, Unicode and utf8 handling, and which language constructs are appropriate where. Their experience with Perl in the real world shows in the explanations.
The writing and examples are clear and concise. The book's web site has an errata section which is kept up to date so I could mark up the known errors.
Effective Perl Programming revealed some of the features of recent Perl and new modules which I hadn't noticed or had time to internalize. Sometimes it is time to unlearn old habits and get up to date!
The authors have clearly carefully selected which material to cover, and covered it well. Part of writing idiomatic Perl is to improve the way I think of writing in Perl, and the topics selected by the authors cover about 90% of the things I need to do in my software development using Perl.
The book uses colour in the code examples to highlight the important bits. The quality of the book as a physical artifact seemed better than most "mass market" technical books I buy these days.
The time I spent reading the book has already been handsomely rewarded. All in all the book is well written, accurate, and a delight to read. The authors know their stuff and provide pointers to resources which cover other aspects of Perl well.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth having, no matter how expecienced you are, Aug 10 2010
By Egor Shipovalov - Published on Amazon.com
Having purchased the first edition many years ago, I've found it probably the most useful Perl book I ever had - one of those that Internet somehow couldn't manage to replace. It showed how to think in Perl, often tackling problems in ways not possible in other languages. This book is an excellent sequel that I'd consider a must-have for any Perl developer. I routinely check almost every Perl book that comes out, and this is probably one in a dozen I've seen lately that could teach me something about the language itself. There couldn't be a better indication that Perl is alive and kicking.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Packed Full of "Effective" Information, Jun 2 2010
By Shild - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl (Paperback)
I don't own the first edition, so I can't compare the two editions. I did read a review of the 1st edition that talked about how densely populated it was for a small book, well that certainly is the case for the 2nd edition. With 12 years of Perl growth since the 1st edition, there is a lot more density added to the book. It is not, as the authors state, the definitive guide on Perl, but it is well worth owning and covers a lot of topics (including Perl 5.12) in small concise sections or "Items" that end with a "Things To Remember" section which is a list of key points that the reader should "remember". I highly recommend this book for any perl programmer, even though it is geared towards the intermediate to advanced Perl programmer. I also recommend checking out the book's website (effectiveperlprogramming dot com), which states "The Effective Perler is the online extension of the Effective Perl Programming, 2nd Edition." I try to visit the website every couple of days, it has more informative "Items" that did not make it into the book. It's worth a visit and there are fairly consistent posts.