Which book are you talking about? Learning Perl 4th Edition hits the shelves this month. You can Buy it on Amazon right now if you like.

We're also updating Learning Perl References, Objects and Modules, although that won't hit the stores until next spring (fingers crossed). It will show up with its new name, Intermediate Perl.

However, we're still in Perl 5 land, and Perl 5 has been around for a while. The point releases add some features, but not enough to make Programming Perl obsolete.

If you want Perl 6 stuff, O'Reilly has a couple of books on that, but Perl 6 is moving so fast that those are more out of date than the Perl 5 books.

so, why "learning perl" and not "programming perl?" It's somewhat a rhetorical question because I know that there are differences in scope and objective.. but what about audience? Is this book covering the same stuff that "programming" covers, just differently for a different audience?

here's an embarrassing question: does ORA still give author discounts on books you buy from them? I don't see anything on their site, and it's been quite a long time since I got any ora books. But, I wrote two books for them (1989 and 1991-3: the Motif Programming Manuals), and that was a time when I could get all the books I wanted for FREE! (All I had to do was call them.) I know THAT went away, but... still.... am I just chopped liver now? :-)

Dan Heller
http://www.danheller.com

Not wanting to advertise, but i use and like this from O'Reilly:

If you want it relative cheap, and allways want to read the latest versions, did you concider using the Safari Bookshelf?
You can try it for free.


"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." - Larry Wall.

We re-wrote Learning Perl because I convinced O'Reilly and Randal to do it. They haven't redone Programming Perl probably because none of the authors have asked to do it as well as the fact that they don't need to do it.

Learning Perl covers 80% of the Perl that most people will use every day. It's a tutorial. Programming Perl, however, is the definitive reference. You'd have to stack three Learning Perl books to get the spine width of Programming Perl. They don't cover the same things because Programming Perl covers a lot more.

O'Reilly does have discounts for authors. You'd have to talk to them about using it though.

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brian d foy <brian@stonehenge.com>

well I'll be... I'm working my way through that series of X manuals right now. THAT is a series I'd like to see updated ;)

Thanks for your work, Dan.

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The language hasn't changed enough and drastically enough that the publisher and authors want to revise the book. (It's a large project.)

The second edition of the Perl Cookbook covers almost everything that would be in a new edition of the Camel, though.

If you feel comfortable chasing down the documentation, the perldelta POD files give more details on the changes between releases.

Read perl58delta (which documents the differences between 5.6.0 and 5.8.0) and wonder if that enough to take Larry away from perl6 for a year to write a new Camel.