perlron has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

HI, I know there are a lot of good perl books out there. I just realised my programming skills are not that great..as ive been using google to do most of my perl code.
Can you recommend a book i can buy (amazon, book store whatever) which will make me better understand Session based Programming with perl ?
The documentation for gr8 modules like CGI::Application and CGI::Session does not delve into the depths of how the session variables are managed, so its difficult to get an understanding of the underlying session management. Thats where my actual problem starts, and i'm having to use logging statements everywhere to figure out stuff..
Id be interested in books in general on Web Development with Perl too. I dont mind even starting of with an RFC from ietf, but i'm hoping there is a smarter way..
I hope this post is not in violation of any perl monk rules for soliciting an opinion on which perl book to buy.
  • Comment on Book Reccomendation for Web Development using Perl

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Book Reccomendation for Web Development using Perl
by blindluke (Hermit) on Oct 13, 2014 at 07:45 UTC

    I would recommend looking at Dancer. Here is a nice tutorial.

    It's very well documented, and there are Advent calendars for 2010, 2011 and 2012, with a lot of knowledge to learn from.

    Simple session management can be found here, in a tiny blog engine tutorial.

    And, (update), since you want to invest in a good, modern book on Perl, allow me to recommend Beginning Perl (2012) by Ovid. It's fairly recent, it will improve your Perl skills, it covers a large variety of topics, and, within its 700 pages, you will find about 70 on web development, with a good explanation of session management basics.

    regards,
    Luke Jefferson

[reply]
Re: Book Reccomendation for Web Development using Perl
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 13, 2014 at 10:13 UTC

    HI, I know there are a lot of good perl books out there. I just realised my programming skills are not that great..as ive been using google to do most of my perl code.

    You skills aren't too far from removed from great, and your attitude is great :)

    See these links here Re: Perl and Fastcgi + template system (confused) like Web Programming: For Beginners and to learn about the internet

    and Watch the videos on perlmaven linked here http://szabgab.com/catalys-dancer-mojolicious.html

    The documentation for gr8 modules like CGI::Application and CGI::Session does not delve into the depths of how the session variables are managed, so its difficult to get an understanding of the underlying session management. Thats where my actual problem starts, and i'm having to use logging statements everywhere to figure out stuff..

    Do you understand cookies? Did you read CGI::Session::Tutorial

    See code and my links at Problems with session expiration

    Then forget about "use CGI::Session;" because that is low level stuff (like "use CGI", see Re: ModPerl Registry vs Apache Handlers (neither))), you want to use Dancer/Mojolicious... this is higher level easy way ... don't skip reading the other tutorials if you need refresher about HTTP/CGI, but to start writing code stick with mojo or dancer

[reply]
      A good regular perl book is chromatics free book Modern Perl a loose description of how experienced and effective Perl 5 programmers work....You can learn this too.
[reply]
      Ok. hats off. you're giving me so much good "gyan" a term we use in India ..i cant take it:D im not a big fan of cookies in web development, and i want to use only CGISESSID (which i now know also shows up as a cookie). Will check out problems with session expiration too.
[reply]
        i feel dancer and mojo simplify things to the point you dont need to know the basics any more. just call the get and post urls and your app is up. like its only because of legacy modules like CGI::Application i understood the value of Template Toolkit, though even dancer uses TT. But yes, dancer is so classy and light. i will use it sooner than..
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom