Perl Newbie - Need good book recommendation

[Ed Yost]

Hi all,

I am a complete newbie to perl and have no programming experience. Do
any of you have a good recommendation on a book or resource for a
beginner such as myself?

Thanks,

Ed

[Tn]

Hi,

I recommend not buying anything. After all, perl itself including all
sources are free, and they come will extensive documentation, while the
sources are the ultimate reference. All you need is online and free and
can be found by googling. The approach I recommend, is:

read one or two free, online introductions
write a few simple programs
read some of the core perldocs that seem interesting
write some more programs
get sources for some free perl applications and read them
write some more programs
get sources for some CPAN modules and read them
write a simple module
get the perl sources and read them
write the killer-app in perl and retire rich and famous

A good basic intro to perl is at:
[url]http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/[/url]

Here are some other links to free, online perl tutorials that I've
found:
[url]http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Training/PerlIntro/[/url]
[url]http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/Perl/start.html[/url]
[url]http://www.cclabs.missouri.edu/things/instruction/perl/perlcourse.html[/url]

Here's a free Gtk-perl tutorial
[url]http://personal.riverusers.com/~swilhelm/gtkperl-tutorial/[/url]

-tristram

[Marc Adler]

* Ed Yost <eyost@mindspring.com> [2003-09-27 14:29]:

> Hi all,
>
> I am a complete newbie to perl and have no programming experience. Do
> any of you have a good recommendation on a book or resource for a
> beginner such as myself?

I'm using O'Reilly's _Learning Perl_ and it's very clear. Like you, I
have no programming experience (except for BASIC and Pascal in high
school over ten years ago of which I remember exactly zero), and find
the book's hand-holding style (jokes, focusing on one specific topic at
a time, building on each concept, etc.) reassuring. I tried using online
tutorials like the other replier suggests, but got lost. I think that
method works if you know something about programming already, because
most of the tutorials I came across (granted, they may not have been the
best ones, and I didn't try hundreds before going for the book) assume a
certain level of familiarity with basic programming concepts which I
didn't have.

--
Sat, 27 Sep 2003 16:17:00 -1000
Linux 2.4.20-20.9
Mutt 1.4.1i (2003-03-19)


A legion of French Bosoms could not match the lucid beauty of your toenails!

-- the surreal compliment generator
Marc Adler

[David Wall]

--On Saturday, September 27, 2003 8:06 PM -0400 Ed Yost
<eyost@mindspring.com> wrote:

> I am a complete newbie to perl and have no programming experience. Do any
> of you have a good recommendation on a book or resource for a beginner
> such as myself?

A list of good Perl books is maintained at [url]http://learn.perl.org/[/url]. I'd
suggest either _Learning Perl_ or _Elements of Programming with Perl_. But
as "TN" suggested, you could start with "Picking up Perl"
<http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/> for free. That way you haven't spent
any money if you decide not to use Perl. (Hey, it can happen :-)

[Jeff Borders]

Ed,

Let me throw some advice your way. These are the books I highly
recommend. Believe me when I say, I've bought a lot of Perl books. I
probably have 10-15 right now.

Learning Perl - O'Reilly
Perl: The Complete Reference - Osborne
Perl Developer's Dictionary - Sams
Perl for System Administration - O'Reilly

You can view the covers and access links to these books on my website.

[url]http://www.jeffborders.com/misc/books.html[/url]

Big advice, look for these books on clearance racks at your local
computer store. we have a "Microcenter" here in Columbus, Ohio that is
trying to unload a lot of these for $3.99 - 6.99. I've bought a few
that way.

Big advice #2. Ebay. I buy all new books and expensive books through
trusted sellers for about a 50-60% savings. Make sure you can pay media
rate on the shipping. $4.00. I routinely buy books for $15-20 here.

Big advice #3. Check Amazon's used sellers. Another source for 50%
off. I've never paid more than $15-25 this way.

If you want more advice on Perl books, ask me. I've probably read it
and can tell you what it emphasizes and whether it's suited for a
beginner.

Good luck.

Jeff Borders

ps. You're not the Ed Yost that works at Softpro, are you? If so,
we've worked on projects together for NWTitle. Small World.


On Sat, 2003-09-27 at 20:06, Ed Yost wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am a complete newbie to perl and have no programming experience. Do
> any of you have a good recommendation on a book or resource for a
> beginner such as myself?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ed
>

[Tn]

Ja,

You can also try a safari subscription - [url]http://safari.oreilly.org[/url] if
only as a means to sample a wide assortment of technical books to see
which are most worth buying in hardcopy.

Over the past 15 years I've spent a small fortune on books and paid
subscriptions, and there is an educational value to them. But most of
that was due to my bias that paying for something made it more likely to
be worth the price. Now things have changed:

(1) I realized that the main price for learning is personal commitment -
nobody can make you learn something, and nobody can prevent you;

(2) There is a heck of a lot of great stuff on the Internet today
compared to even a few years ago and it's easy to find with Google;

(3) There is an undeniably benevelovent and learning-conducive quality
to free opensource materials compared to money-making products (but you
have to be ready to appreciate it).

More practically, when you have a few tons of books it makes relocation
an expensive pain in the back. So I decided to donate my $30,000
library (of mostly technical books) to the nearest public library and
start traveling light.

I recommend certain "learning to learn" materials, such as Photoreading
and the Memory Optimizer from Learning Strategies
([url]http://www.learningstrategies.com[/url]) even if you have to pay for them.
But for Photoreading all you need is the $10 book, not the $250 audio
course and both courses are probably available in slightly used
condition on Amazon at huge discounts.

A great way to learn is to teach. In that sense many authors have
already been paid in full when the final draft has been produced and
anything else is a bonus. A superlative teacher, like anyone else who
really adds value will be able to attract many students (customers) who
will voluntarily make contributions (the shareware model).

Instead of buying a lot of books, my preference is to get a good laptop
and Internet connection and rely on free, online resources (including
this mail group) for 99% of my educational content. Sure, its partly a
matter of principle. It's also cost-effective.

Long live the Internet and long live OpenSource!

Tristram Nefzger

[Dan Anderson]

> Big advice #2. Ebay. I buy all new books and expensive books through

> trusted sellers for about a 50-60% savings. Make sure you can pay media
> rate on the shipping. $4.00. I routinely buy books for $15-20 here.

I do the same thing, and would add the following sites:

[url]http://www.alibris.com[/url]
[url]http://www.half.com[/url]
[url]http://www.addall.com[/url]

You can get used and new books for much less then the sticker price.

I would just add a word of caution though: sometimes you can find a
really cheap perl book for $4. Double check that the edition is
relatively new and covers Perl 5. Otherwise you may get a great deal on
a book about Perl 1.

-Dan

[Alan Perry]

>> Big advice #2. Ebay. I buy all new books and expensive books through

>> trusted sellers for about a 50-60% savings. Make sure you can pay media
>> rate on the shipping. $4.00. I routinely buy books for $15-20 here.

>
>I do the same thing, and would add the following sites:
>
>[url]http://www.alibris.com[/url]
>[url]http://www.half.com[/url]
>[url]http://www.addall.com[/url]
>
>You can get used and new books for much less then the sticker price.
>
>I would just add a word of caution though: sometimes you can find a
>really cheap perl book for $4. Double check that the edition is
>relatively new and covers Perl 5. Otherwise you may get a great deal on
>a book about Perl 1.

I would also add [url]http://www.bookpool.com[/url]

Great prices, and free shipping to U.S. destinations on orders over $40.

Alan