Perl Cookbook 1ST Edition Books

Pros: Real-world problems and solutions
Cons: Backaches from carting it around

Let's imagine you wandered in here by accident: by now, you'd probably be wondering how - and more to the point, why - anyone would cook semiprecious gemstones. I'm sorry, but those pretty white things are pearls. For the record, Perl ...

Pros: Numerous complete examples on many topics
Cons: none

This book does something simple that few others can claim: it shows you how to do something useful. What I mean is that most books are trying to teach you something, or if it is a really good book, it teaches you a new way to think. This book does...

Pros: examples of problems and their solutions, organized logically
Cons: not an intro to perl book

The Perl Cookbook is the best perl book that I've seen. I've got a lot of perl books and this is the one that I continually find the right information in. The book is broken down, as you might expect, like a cookbook and has various examples to known...

Pros: Many regex examples, some advanced topics
Cons: not for beginners (only a con for a beginner)

The Perl Cookbook is like the sequel to Programming Perl. It contains many examples that were cut out of the 600 page Programming Perl book. Anyone that programs in Perl should have this book as a reference tool. Unlike Programming Perl, the Cookbook...

Pros: Lots of code examples, easy to reference
Cons: Not good for learning Perl

As a programming cookbook, this book presents a bunch of problems that you, as a Perl programmer, may encounter in your everyday development work and then shows you both the code that solves the problem and a lengthy discussion on how the code works. So far none of the problems has applied to my everyday Perl development chores, but by simly reading through some of the more interesting problems, I've learned a great deal more about Perl than before.

So this book works well as a learning tool for someone who already knows Perl but is still intrigued by its vast arsenal of powerful features -- and arcane usage. Any serious Perl programmer can be helped by this book, whether he or she finds the examples in the book directly applicable or not.