Perl from the ground up -- review


    Perl from the ground up is an introductory book on Perl.  Though a
    limited overview of the language.  First of all, table of contents:

    * Preface

    * An introduction to Perl

    * Perl language basics -- data types and operators

    * Basic Perl data structures

    * Control structures

    * Pattern matching and regular expressions

    * Input/output in Perl

    * Report formatting in Perl

    * Perl's built-in functions

    * Custom functions

    * References and anonymous data structures

    * Object-oriented programming in Perl

    * Advanced data manipulation

    * Debugging in Perl

    * Working with directories

    * Managing system processes

    * Managing users in the Windows NT environment

    * Database programming with Perl

    * Perl CGI programming

    * Internet-related libraries, modules, and utilities for Perl

    * An introduction to Web programming with PerlScript

    * The Perl standard library

    * Getting user interfaces with Perl/Tk

    * Appendix A: Perl error messages

    * Appendix B: Perl module extensions

    * Appendix C: Special Perl variables

    * Appendix D: Where to find Perl and get help about Perl

    * Appendix E: The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)

    * Appendix F: Glossary of terms

    * Index

    Altough the text on the cover says: "Open this book as a novice and
    finish it as a pro", it's utter nonsense.  The book is far from being
    complete and even much further from being a good one.

    The first thing that hit me was the plenty of typos.  In programming
    books correct code is fundamental.  The examples are also very
    inconsistent.  It seems as if the examples were copy-pasted from several
    places.  Sometimes strict is used, sometimes it isn't.  Sometimes there
    is some error checking, sometimes there isn't.  Explanations are very
    sloppy throughout the book.

    A book on Perl should emphasize Perl philosophy - I don't solely mean
    TIMTOWTDI.  However in this book this stuff is totally missing.  The
    author should stress at least using -w and strict.  What's more, he
    doesn't stress proper error checking.  Error checking is fundamental in
    every language.  Most examples totally lack error checking.  In
    "Input/output in Perl" I'd expect more emphasis on it.  Scalar and list
    context isn't explained anywhere.  "&sub($a, $b);" and "sub($a, $b);"
    are inconsistently used - mostly misused - throughout the book.  The
    "&sub($a, $b);" notation is a Perl 4 relic and is in fact different from
    "sub($a, $b);".

    The code is almost entirely written in C syntax.  The author doesn't or
    rarely use "for(1..10)" or "print $a if $b;".  In one of the examples he
    uses "for" to delay the execution. He should have used "sleep", to avoid
    CPU-dependent duration.

    "References and anonymous data structures" is very obscure.  File::Find
    - which is a standard Perl module - isn't even mentioned in "Working
    with directories".  In "Database programming with Perl" there are no SQL
    and/or DBI examples.  The flat file part doesn't say anything about
    locking and flock.  "Perl's built-in functions" is essentially a copy of
    the perlfunc manual page, a bad one actually.  Its examples are mostly
    meaningless.  One can look up built-in functions with 'perldoc perlfunc'
    which is more up-to-date and has usable code.

    Appendix A is a mirror of the perldiag manual page, though I can live
    with it.  Appendix B is too short and uninformative.  I seriously doubt
    that anyone will learn anything worthwhile from this chapter.

    To conclude: if you want to master Perl, avoid this book.  However, it
    might be fine for you if all you want is a one off.