in reply to Camel vs Llama for a newbie

I'm teaching my girlfriend who's never programmed before from the Llama. I've taught C++/Java programmers from the Camel. What I've found is that the Llama tends to be too simple for most professional programmers. The Camel can be a little ... dense sometimes, but you should be playing around with the language anyways.

I, personally, would stick with the books from O'Reilly. I've read a number of other books and ORA just tends to have better-written and more readable books. In addition, a number of ORA authors hang out here, most notably merlyn (who writes the Llama).

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

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Re: Re: Camel vs Llama for a newbie
by davorg (Chancellor) on Sep 07, 2001 at 19:50 UTC
    I, personally, would stick with the books from O'Reilly.

    Well, if you did that, you'd miss out on Object Oriented Perl, Effective Perl Programming and Perl Debugged which are three of the best Perl books available.

    And more non-ORA authors than ORA authors hang out here :)

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

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

[reply]
      And don't forget Data Munging with Perl ;-)

      Note to dragonchild: And Effective Perl Programming is by merlyn but is not an ORA book.

[reply]
      I agree that O'Reilly is the best way to go as well. The other cool thing you could do is check out Safari. For $10 bucks a month you can subscribe to 5 online O'Reilly books.

      Even though I own both the Camel and the Llama I find myself using Safari more just because I can search. heh

      check it out at: http://safari.oreilly.com/

      Cheers!
[reply]
        Thats about $60 for 6 months, and $120 for one year. So you have spent $120 in one year and the only thing left, is the information your brain can remember.
        I believe Safari is the wrong thing for a beginner. $10/month for five books seems to be cheap, but in the long run you better buy the books you will need during the next years.
        So if you don't care to read your books on the screen, $63.96 for The Perl CD Bookshelf: Version 2.0 will be a much wiser investment.
        That does not mean Safari is useless and a too expensive service. Actually Safari is a great service for Programmers. Some books you read just once, and its not necessary to buy them. If your a lucky you can get these books from your local library; if not Safari will be the service you need.

        Hanamaki
[reply]
      I've read Object Oriented Perl, and Data Munging with Perl, and a number of non-ORA other books. Personally, while I'm sure that all these authors are an excellent programmers, their books tended to be pedantic and (I felt) didn't add very much to the 3rd ed. Camel's treatment of whichever subject.

      Effective Perl Programming was a delightful surprise. But, it still didn't add a huge amount to my personal knowledge. Programming Perls was the same way.

      If you want to learn to program, take a course.

      If you want to learn the language of Perl, read the Camel book, then hang out on PM.

      If you want to learn how to program well, it doesn't matter how many Perl books you read because you will still have a myopic view of programming. Read Code Complete and The Pragmatic Programmer for that knowledge.

      ------
      We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

      Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

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