Chris> Personally, I think _Learning Perl_ is really showing its age.
I'm going to try to figure out how to say this without insulting a book that
I *do* like and authors who are both Perl wizards and whose writing has
given me a lot. Maybe dated isn't the right word, although the books style
is, for lack of a better word, more "old fashioned." I can only speak to my
own experience and that of those who I know, and I would say that half still
feel that the _Learning Perl_ book is the best book out there, while the
other half found other volumes more effective.
I've recommended LP in the past many times, and there are certain people to
whom I still make that recommendation. In fact, that might be part of it...
those who are already programmers in another language seem to really profit
from LP.
For me (who came into computers ass-backwards carrying degrees in philosophy
and writing poetry), it just didn't WORK that well. There seemed to be
little things assumed about the language and terminology assumed about the
reader that I wasn't grokking. I'll grant that it has been a few years since
I used the book (I was using a Second Edition though), nor can I recall
specifics since it has been a few years and I have since learned to grasp at
least a FEW more concepts.
For what it is--a book that is meant to accompany or represent a particular
class of a particular length in hours-- LP is great. For programmers in
other languages, or who even have experience in any other language, it is
probably great. For me, with very little experience of any kind, it didn't
work out so well. As a single starting tome for beginners, I feel that the
expanded coverage of using modules, OO, CGI, and the generally more lengthy
and in-depth explanations of most concepts in the _Beginning Perl_ book are
more fruitful. That might just be a quality of having more room to explain
concepts (or to luxuriate in explanations and handholding and diagrams that
others might not need, some would say). Yes, it would take more time to
cover that book, but my answer wasn't about what book would fit in a limited
number of hours best, but in a series of books that we would recommend.
> I pondered this question VERY carefully when redesigning the llama
> course over the past few years, which has become the llama3 book soon
> hitting the streets. There's nothing dated about a book and course
> that are updated every two months or so.
I look forward to seeing this revision. The second edition came out in 97,
right?
c
