Mr.T has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello! This is Mr.T again.

I am still very new to Perl, and learning all I can using the man pages, and Perlmonks, however, I would really like to read some books related to Perl programming, and I don't know which ones to start with first!

Does anyone have a few good choices that a novice Perl hacker such as myself should check out asap? I don't have a lot of time to read *every* Perl book yet, but I would enjoy reading a few that are considered the 'best' for an early Perl programmer to read!

Thanks for all of the rapid help!

Mr.T
qw/"I pity da foo' who don't use Perl!"/;

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by mikeB (Friar) on Aug 10, 2001 at 01:42 UTC
    Learning Perl is probably the best starting book. I like Effective Perl Programming by Hall & Schwartz. Also, of course, Camel III. If you feel you've got the these down, Mastering Regular Expressions will keep you entertained for hours.
[reply]
      I just received an email from O'Reilly and Associates this afternoon. Learning Perl, 3rd Edition has just been released. It is written by our esteemed merlyn and Tom Phoenix. And here is a link to an interview of the two of them. And here is a link to the book itself.

      TStanley
      --------
      There's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us
      about this script for Hamlet they've worked out
      -- Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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      LOL...entertained is not quite the word I would use for it but it's definitely...time consuming =P

      ----------
      - Jim

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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by apsyrtes (Beadle) on Aug 10, 2001 at 05:05 UTC
    At the risk of being castrated for not recommending O'Reilly books...

    I'd seriously recommend Perl: A Beginner's Guide by Donald Thomas and R.Wyke (Osborne).

    Following that, you can read Debugging Perl: Troubleshooting for Programmers by Martin Brown (again, Osborne)

    Then Perl: The Complete Reference, Second Edition by Martin Brown (Osborne... again) should sit on your shelf and be handy.

    After this, I've found everything else I've needed either Here or with perldoc.



    ---Apsyrtes, who got a *really* good deal on a bunch of Osborne books.... ;)
[reply]

      I'm more than happy for you to recommend non-O'Reilly books :), but please don't recommend anything by Martin Brown. He seems to have made a nice little career out of doing nothing more than repackaging the standard Perl documents.

      --
      <http://www.dave.org.uk>

      Perl Training in the UK <http://www.iterative-software.com>

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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by mugwumpjism (Hermit) on Aug 10, 2001 at 01:50 UTC

    If you already know how to program, ie you know what it means for something to be of a "regular" or "context free" grammar, you have coded a B+ tree and hash buckets in a functional language, and know what polymorphism is, then I'd suggest skipping straight to Programming Perl. It covers everything that Learning Perl does IMO, and in a style well suited to people who don't need their hand held whilst introducing some of those concepts.

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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by DSPerlCoder (Novice) on Aug 10, 2001 at 07:05 UTC
    As you have been bashed over the head with recently, Learning Perl is a good start. Another that I have ?benifited? from is Perl Cookbook. It explains and gives very good examples on lots of stuff. Also, try the perl man pages. They are great references for quick searches. I have worn perlfunc(1) out. Taste judge is pretty much how it goes.
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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by davorg (Chancellor) on Aug 10, 2001 at 13:03 UTC

    As others have mentioned, Learning Perl is a great book for... er... learning Perl! What hasn't been pointed out is that it assumes that you have at least some knowledge of how programming languages work. I don't know whether you have any knowledge of other programming languages, but if Perl is your first language then you'd be much better off going for Elements of Programming with Perl by Andrew Johnson.

    --
    <http://www.dave.org.uk>

    Perl Training in the UK <http://www.iterative-software.com>

[reply]
Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by melguin (Pilgrim) on Aug 10, 2001 at 01:43 UTC
    learning perl (O'Reilly) first.
    the perl in a nutshell and/or programming perl (also both O'Reilley)
[reply]
      Just don't get 'Perl and CGI for the world wide web' by Elizabeth Castro. That was the first Perl book I bought and it's no good at all. Learning Perl was excellent though.
[reply]
        davorg has told me that version 2 of the Castro book will be much better (or less awfull :) as he has corrected a large number of errors in cooperation with the author.

        See his use.perl.org journal for details

        Update Changed link to the exact journal entry

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[reply]
        I'll second that - I felt it was a great book if I wanted to do exactly the same as the authors - not very tmtowtdi.

        § George Sherston
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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by snafu (Chaplain) on Aug 10, 2001 at 02:01 UTC
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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Aug 10, 2001 at 02:41 UTC

    I didn't really like Learning Perl; I came to Perl with a fair bit of programming experience, and LP put me to sleep through the first half-dozen chapters. I'd go with Programming Perl to start with, especially if you've got previous experience in programming. I'd also suggest The Perl Cookbook: it's a great place to pick up Perl idioms, and a pretty good resource if you need to get something done, but don't have the time (or patience :-) to figure it out from first principles.

    I also like Mastering Regular Expressions. It really does a good job of demystifying regexes. I read it cover to cover in one sitting. (Yeah, I'm a geek.)

    --
    :wq
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Re: Choice Perl Book Picks
by seanbo (Chaplain) on Aug 10, 2001 at 17:09 UTC
    I second mikeB's vote for Effective Perl Programming, co-written by our very own merlyn. This book is AWESOME!

    seanbo
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