What is Perl
Perl is the Swiss Army knife for scripting languages (rather call it programming language): powerful and adaptable. It was first developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA in the late 1980s, as a way to make report processing easier.
Since then, it has moved into a large number of roles: automating system administration, acting as glue between different computer systems; and, of course, being one of the most popular languages for CGI programming on the Web.
For more information on Basic introduction on Perl, please click here
We have posted a small post on “Applications based on Perl”.
Why Modern Perl (2011-2012 edition)?
According to author Chromatic “When you have to solve a problem now, reach for Perl. When you have to solve a problem right, reach for Modern Perl.”
There are lots of books available on Perl in the market then why and how it is unique and very popular amongst Perl programmers?
The reason is very simple , it’s author Chromatic is well renowned face over the Perl community and this book covers various features that are introduced in 5.10,5.12 and 5.14 and it got released on February,2012
Its list of contents looks very promising to me. No matter who you are, a novice in Perl or an expert; this book has something new, interesting and informative contents for you.
First three chapters deal with Perl Philosophy, its community and Basics of Perl Language. The contents are very informative and full summary on what you can achieve through Perl. You can start writing simple Perl code just after reading first three chapters too!
Next three chapters on Operators, Functions and Regular Expression will make you almost a Perl programmer within no time. If you don’t want to use object oriented Perl, then You will find yourself a comfortable programmer in Perl’s zone. But Perl’s power can’t be judged by stopping there. So next few chapters will show you the real implementation and object Oriented Perl
The next three chapters deal with Perl objects, style and efficacy and managing real Programs. These chapters will teach you
- How to use Object Oriented concept effectively in Perl
- Moose and Perl features
- Pragmas, exceptions
- How to maintain large programs
- How to write effective Perl programs
- How to use testing module
- How to use file handling things and other fundamental things like overloading, taint etc
Then last three chapters deal with some exceptional topics which other authors or programmers avoid usually. Chromatic has explained and portrayed these things beautifully. He has explained
- Syntax like handling $self, named parameters, handling main, Global variables etc
- What to avoid while writing Perl programs like barewords, prototypes etc
- Missing defaults like strict, warnings, autodie etc.
Who is Chromatic
Well I put a small review on Modern Perl and praise author many times. Now who is Chromatic ?
He is a writer and free software programmer from USA. He is the author of many other popular books like
- Extreme Programming Pocket Guide
- Perl Hacks
- Co-author of “Perl Testing: Developer’s Notebook”
- Noted contributor to “The Art of Agile Development”
He has contributed to CPAN, Perl 5, Perl6 and Parrot too. He was the project secretary of Perl6 and Parrot Foundations too. He is the core developer for Parrot – an open source virtual machine created I n 2008.
From where we can buy it or download it
- You can buy it from Amazon or Powells or Barnes and Noble book store.
- You can download its electronic version in A4 or letter format too.
- Get all the details about download options from Onyx Neon Press
- You can download it from our website too!
Rating for Modern Perl (4.5/5)
I would recommend this book for all Perl enthusiasts. If you wish to start a career in Perl programming or you are a beginner in Perl Programming then just read its first three chapters and decide ahead. Check our other books recommendation below.
For intermediate and Advanced level Perl Programmers, it’s a must read book.
It would be really nice if it would have shown some real example with screenshots and output.
