Reviews for Perl by Example

1. Excellent

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, May 12rd, 1999

   Before buying this book, I had the 'Learning Perl' book by O'Reilly, which I found not too useful to learn perl. This book, on the otherhand, is well-written, and has excellent examples. By page 100 (in a pretty lenghty 500 page book!) - and only a few hours (really!) - I had converted a korn-shell script to a perl script... I also ran a test agains the kornshell (processing a 50Mb text file) and what took 120 secs now takes 30! So, I am converted!

   If you want to learn Perl, from scratch, then I would recommend this!

2. The best PERL reference on the market

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 1999

   Having studied other perl books, I can confidently say that this is the most clear resource I've seen to date--especially with respect to perl functions. Most examples are good. One drawback is that there are no exercises or problems to solve.

3. Concur with fella from Oregon - Sucks!

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 1998

   Please do not waste your money on Perl By Example. It is very referency and not as good as Perl POD. If you must by this style of book at least look at the similarly titled Perl 5 By Example written by the same writer. There are several other Perl books worth getting. If you do not have all the O'Reilly books then go get those. Then get Effective Perl.

4. Better than O'Reilly's Books.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 1998

   I believe that this book is a wonderful reference for Perl programers of all levels. The Detailed Index in the back makes it easy to look up the exact subject. Many details not discussed in the O'Reilly books have examples here.

5. An okay book. Not to be confused with "Perl 5 By Example."

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 1998

   After picking up a copy of this book after having read glowing reviews of "Perl 5 By Example," I realized I'd purchased a completely different volume. After my initial anger at my carelessness that two books would share such similar titles, I started reading and found it's actually not so terrible. The biggest problem for Perl initiates will be the occasional referencing of features that aren't explained until later chapters. The author seems to assume User knowledge of UNIX commands, though that wasn't much of a hinderance. Overall, I think my good feelings about the experience are more related to Perl than about the book. Just be aware if someone recommends "Perl by Example" that they may be talking about "Perl 5 by Example." One of the publishers needs to change this in the next release.