Any1 recomend a beginning PERL script book?

[High_Jumbllama]

Though I have programmed before years ago. I have not done anything beyond simple batch scripts for years. Can someone recomend a good beginner's PERL script book? Many thanks.

[HedsSpaz]

Programming Perl from O'Reilly, aka 'The Camel Book', is widely accepted as the Perl Bible, or at least the next best thing. O'Reilly also has a 'Beginning Perl' book, but I don't think I'd recommend bothering with it unless you want a book that is part 'how to program' and part 'how to program in perl'. If your programming skills really need a refresher than pick up the beginner's book, otherwise just get the Camel Book (it has a camel on the cover, it's hard to miss).

Ian

[HedsSpaz]

Not sure if this is the same as the "Beginning Perl" book that HedsSpaz mentioned

It is, I just got the name wrong, I don't own it myself as I taught myself Perl after years of programming in C and didn't feel the need to get an introductory level book. I've heard that the Regular Expression book is a good one, both for the technical aspects of Regex's in general and perl regex's in specific. I haven't picked it up yet myself though. I have the Perl DBI book which is great if you ever plan on doing any work with databases. The Perl Cookbook is also an invaluable second level resource once you get comfortable working with perl. The 'CGI Programming with Perl' book is so so though. If you need to do any cgi scripting find a good CGI guru who you can pester with questions. The Perl in a Nutshell is also a handy resource for general perl stuff, it's not a book to try and learn from though.

In general O'Reilly has some of the better books on programming for any languange, and particularly for Perl. If you need to do something in perl check and see what O'Reilly has to offer first.

Ian

[High_Jumbllama]

I'll have the boss get me the beginning book then. I'd rather feel like the book is talking down to me than going completely over my head.

I even got a copy of Windows 2000 Server for dummies when I first put this network together. It got me past my first few hurdles. Everything else I was able to figure out on my own after that.

[HedsSpaz]

The 'Programming Perl' book is really easy to understand actually. It's aimed to people who basically understand how to program, but doesn't make any assumptions about skill level. Unless you don't know how to program at all (and you've already said that you have some experience), I'd recommend it over 'Learning Perl'. Like I said, I haven't read the 'Leraning Perl' book, but I have my doubts that it's worth your time, it's about half the size of the camel book and I can't imagine that they can cover things in that amount of space anywhere as near as well as they do in the camel book.
Not that 'Learning Perl' is a bad book to own neccesarily, I just suspect that you'll discover rather quickly that you'll want/need a better resource.

Just my opinion though. Of course, if your boss is buying the books for you then you can always go back to him and tell him you need a more detailed book now.

Ian

[High_Jumbllama]

I was looking online for various tutorials and I came up with a question. Do these two O'Reilly books teach PERL as a seperate language or for use in web servers or both? I know my questions are very newbieish.

[kewlcat]

I was looking online for various tutorials and I came up with a question. Do these two O'Reilly books teach PERL as a seperate language or for use in web servers or both?

The "Learning Perl" and "Programming Perl" teach Perl as a standalone language. There is a separate book that covers CGI (web server) programming.

-Rahul