Item Description: Disregarding the title, this book is actually a book written in German aimed at the beginner and intermediate

Review Synopsis: Go to Perl 5
author: Michael Schilli
publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 3 273 1378 3

potential readers:

Since it is in German, everyone that is more comfortable reading German than English, especially beginners and intermediate users of perl.

contents:

compact introduction to Perl in terms of syntax, string manipulation, list manipulation, regex etc.
complete with examples & excercises

introduction to OO complete with examples & excercises

a chapter on modules and their use, especially:

• LWP
• NET::FTP
• URI::URL
• diverse HTML modules

again complete with examples & exercises

a chapter on Perl/TK

information on installing Perl

a CD with the book containing a Perl as source, a binary for win32 (all slightly outdated by now in my edition) and all the examples from the book

3 stars out of 5

Fine to start out with. All examples and exercises are code that one might need in everyday computing. The auther even keeps an eye on security -w and use strict are not only explained but also used in the examples.
But there will come a time in the live of a Perl adept, when he needs more in depth information than this book can give. Programming Perl is a must have.
Another problem with the first edition (the one I have) is the index. Wrong page numbers in an index are not acceptable in a book that you might also use just to look up a function. This problem might have been fixed in a newer edition.

I still use it alongside my Programming Perl (2nd) and Perl Cookbook.