Easily as good an introduction to Perl as the first
edition. -- Keith Schengili-Roberts, Computer Paper, Feb 2002

This is the book to measure all others against. -- Richard Mateosian, IEEE, Jan/Feb 2002

Book Description

If you ask Perl programmers today what book they relied on most when they were learning Perl, you'll find that an overwhelming majority will name Learning Perl--also known affectionately as "the Llama." The first edition of Learning Perl appeared in 1993 and has been a bestseller ever since. Written by two of the most prominent and active members of the Perl community, this book is the quintessential tutorial for the Perl programming language.

Perl began as a tool for Unix system administrators, used for countless small tasks throughout the workday. It has since blossomed into a full-featured programming language on practically every computing platform, and is used for web programming, database manipulation, XML processing, and (of course) system administration--all this while still remaining the perfect tool for the small daily tasks it was designed for. Perl is quick, fun, and eminently useful. Many people start using Perl because they need it, but they continue to use Perl because they love it.

The third edition of Learning Perl has not only been updated for Perl 5.6, but has also been rewritten from the ground up to reflect the needs of programmers learning Perl today. Informed by their years of success at teaching Perl as consultants, the authors have re-engineered the book to better match the pace and scope appropriate for readers trying to get started with Perl, while retaining the detailed discussion, thorough examples, and eclectic wit for which the book is famous.

This edition of the Llama includes an expanded and more gently-paced introduction to regular expressions, new exercises and solutions designed so readers can practice what they've learned while it's still fresh in their minds, and an overall reworking to bring Learning Perl into the new millennium.

Perl is a language for getting your job done. Other books may teach you to program in Perl, but this book will turn you into a Perl programmer.

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Customer Reviews

57 Reviews

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (57 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Overrated because there are no competing books, Feb 7 2004

David A. Kaplowitz (Havertown, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Learning Perl (Paperback)

I've think I've owned every edition of this book and each time I return it after unsuccessfully trying to get anything useful out of it. Lately I've wanted to really get scripting under my hands to expand my skills as a sysadmin. So I bought this book again (erroneously thinking I'd not tried hard enough the first 2-3 times I used this book to try and learn Perl). While I'm no developer, I'm no stranger to the concepts of coding. I wouldn't exactly call myself a beginner. Nevertheless, this book seems bent on confusing the reader by introducing concept after concept with absolutely no hands on application of the material covered. How exactly are you going to remember all the ways you can list the contents of an arrray without some practical examples?

Reading this book this time (and hopefully for the last time), I keep getting the feeling that these authors wrote the book to appease Perl gurus, not to help people who are new to Perl and who are not senior developers in other programming languages. The constant bombardment of superfluous footnotes also serves to distract the frustrated Perl student from learning the language in any useful fashion. And what gives with the first exercise in the book (!) being about finding the circumference of a circle and the square root of such-and-such? Sadly I never took those math courses, does that mean I can't learn Perl? Or does it just mean that the authors assume all who read this book are math wizzes with years of programming experience?

I noticed another reviewer said that this book is not a reference. I do agree him that a book about learning Perl shouldn't be a reference. But I have to say that this book reads like a reference book....too many concepts thrown in the Perl student's lap without showing him/her at least a couple ways in which the concept(s) might be used.

My opinion is the book is probably good for advanced programmers who want a quick-and-dirty overview of Perl. But to be truly useful (and to live up to the name "learning perl" not "learning perl for math geeks and programming gurus") the book should be bigger, allowing for useful examples that the less-experienced student can run that teach how to actually use these concepts.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, Jun 28 2004

Mansoor (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learning Perl (Paperback)

I have read quite a few perl books but this one is simply amazing. Simple, concise and yet highly detailed, this covers all basics of Perl with through examples, as well as providing some insight into the more advanced techniques. Highly recommended for the entry and intermediate level.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars All in all a good book, with poor writing style, Jun 21 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Learning Perl (Paperback)

My programming background is weak, but I found this book basic enough yet sufficiently comprehensive to write a fairly complicated program for text file parsing in a weekend.
Pros:Clear explanations and examples(albeit in the middle of a distracting, poor writing)
Cons: Very bad writing style, full of unnecessary and distracting footnotes and irrelevant "humor?". Book could have been condensed to 50% by eliminating irrelevant stuff.
Nevertheless, I found this to be better than "for dummies" and "by example", both of which I browsed and discarded almost immediately.
In my opinion this is a good book, but if you have more than 5 neurons in your brain after 4 or 5 days you will be ready to re-sell it and stick with "Programming Perl".

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A great introduction
This book is aimed at Perl novices and sys admins who need to get up to speed quickly. As with most O'Reilly books I found the authors know thier stuff and the book was well... Read more

Published on July 6 2004 by Mike

5.0 out of 5 stars questions about perl
i read nine chapters of this book
1.i still don't know what perl can really do.
2.can perl work only under DOS?not windows?
3. Read more

Published on Jun 23 2004 by funnygamer