Item Description: Web server and client programming, Databases, LDAP, Network and distributed programming, Embedded Perl Scripting, XML, Mathematical and computational applications, Graphics, Perl/TK

Review Synopsis: Good text on some more advanced topics using Perl

Authors: Randy Kobes, Peter Wainwright, Shishir Gundavaram with Adrian Arva, Gavin Brown, Arthur Corliss, Joshua Ellis, Pancrazion de Mauro, Simon Oliver, Mark Wilcox.
Publisher: Wrox
Availability: Barnesandnoble
Price: $49.99

After hashing through a few introductory texts, and purchasing Programming Perl. I decided to purchase 'Professional Perl Developement' after scanning through it and reading a couple of its pages in a shop. Its quite a large book, and I still have a long way to go before I've read it all. I found the CGI stuff well written, and a good introduction for me, so much so that I'm already writing some useful applications. I also found the LWP chapters very useful and well written. So a thumbs up for the web sections (from me anyhow). The Tk stuff was very good, the examples all worked for me, and I found it a great introduction. Its given me a taster for Tk, and I've just ordered Mastering Perl/Tk in the hopes that it can provide me with the higher level of detail that just couldn't be covered by the scope of this book.
Overall, well written, with good working examples, and a very useful edition in any Perl library. Maybe some other monk with more experience of databases, etc. would review some of the middle chapters that I'm missing out on.

Plato