good perl books

[ibennetch]

not sure if this is the right place for this. if it isn't, mods go ahead and move it on outta here!

Can someone recommend a good book to learn Perl on? also, while I've got your attention, is there a difference between perl scripts for the web and perl programs run on a computer?

[BreakWindows]

O'Reilly. more O'Reilly. Then some more :D
"The Perl Cookbook", "Learning Perl", "Perl Programming" are all very good, and all by O'Reilly.

l found another book recently, titled "Perl: How to Program" by Prentice Hall (aqua colored cover, found in every huge nasty corporate chain bookstore ;)) Starts very basic, but does go into some very interesting concepts later in the book; and as a bonus, also teaches the basics of CSS and Python.

In answer to your other question: technically, perl scrripts for the web are perl scripts being run on a computer...your web host's. :) There are CGI environment variables, and the input must be parsed differently than just ripping argv or stdin, but the same concepts apply, and it is still the same language. So, if you know one, you know both.

[cyberhh]

O'Reilly has the best Perl Books on the market. If you want sheer numbers of pages - Sybex has a cheap Perl book (19.95 US) that is 1000 pages and stocked full of information, however it is not the best book on the market and the O'Reilly books are much better.

Also search the web - there are many, many sites dedicating to teaching Perl programming free.

[opiate]

Perl In A Nutshell

[antonye]

I learn Perl from Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672313057/) which included a CD with versions of Perl on it as well as all the code examples in the book.

The book is pretty comprehensive - it covers basic aspects of programming as well as the Perl language - so if you already program you may be better off with more of a reference book (like an O'Reilly) rather than this one.

[Mr_Miyagi]

l learnt the hard way, by playing with a script i wanted to use / change, and several websites.

i then bought a book, subsequently gone walk about.. :rolleyes:

[BreakWindows]

Originally posted by Andy Wright:
l learnt the hard way, by playing with a script i wanted to use / change, and several websites.


Good point, l actually learned on my own. lve only been getting books recently as referance manuals. The best way to learn is hitting siters like http://www.cpan.org , http://www.dmoz.org , http://www.programmingtutorials.com and http://perl.about.com . There is already more info than we can all know what to do with online, and of course if you have any trouble, come to Windrivers/Xdrivers ;)