Sriram Srinivasan

A few days ago, I was relocating my library to a different room. As I moved each book, I glanced at the cover, and for some, briefly recalled passages I enjoyed from the book. I came across one claiming to be the grand-daddy of all Perl books. It made me grin, though, as, were you to ask me, the “grand-daddy of all Perl books” wouldn’t be this one, with the word PERL spelled all in caps, but instead, rather, the book written by the creator of Perl.

This book, written by Larry Wall (et al.) and published by O’Reilly, is entitled Programming Perl. If it were a course in college, it would be Perl 202. Perl 101, of course, would be Schwartz’ (et al.) Learning Perl.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s always Perl 303: Advanced Perl Programming, this edition by Simon Cozens.

It’s hard to imagine needing anything beyond the Llama and the Camel book (as Learning and Programming Perl are oft called, respectively), but if you are like me, and you have this insatiable urge to learn as much about Perl as you possibly can, at least until they revolutionize the language with the adventual release of Perl 6, then you’ll want to devour any book that has the words Perl and O’Reilly on the cover.

I must say that while I am in no way affiliated with O’Reilly, I have a certain bias towards their books, always seeking out an O’Reilly book on a new computer or technical subject before I descend into the madness of lesser tech publishers. Were I to write a tech book, I would hope that O’Reilly would accept it into their folds. Then I’d know I’ve made it.

Advanced Perl Programming goes above and beyond what you’ve learned in the past two books, giving you all manner of tools for all manner of problems. If you thought Perl was a Swiss army chainsaw before, get ready to find even more gadgets tucked inside. And don’t forget CPAN, the source for popular, useful, and clever (though not necessarily all at once) Perl modules. Cozens covers the highlights of these, including several he has written himself (which turn out to be, for the most part, useful; However, Maypole has be all but supplanted by the more modern Catalyst).

When I read through O’Reilly’s library of Perl books, it’s more than just reading about a programming language (one that I speak almost as well as English), but it’s also a look at history, culture, and all that other stuff you get when there are humans attached to the subject matter.

If you like me have a yen for Perl, and you’ve gotten past the Llama and the Camel, and have found yourself irked at lesser publishers publishing lesser Perl books, then get this (and others!) great Perl title, and start your advanced programming, and make the world a better, Perlish place.… (mere)