Programming perl (Nutshell Handbooks) (Paperback)
by Larry Wall (Author), Randal L. Schwartz (Author)

Programming Perl
Larry Wall + Randal L. Schwartz
O'Reilly & Associates
First Edition January 1991
454 pages

Readers already familiar with Perl will presumably either own Programming Perl or have decided not to buy a copy, since it seems to be the only reference for the language. (It is certainly the standard one.) If you are thinking of learning Perl then you have a choice between using this book, using the companion volume Learning Perl, or hacking it out for yourselves with the aid of the fairly comprehensive manual entry. Programming Perl worked fine for me, and it's probably the right way to go for anyone who can already program in C or shell. On the other hand, Learning Perl looks like a good textbook, and its existence makes Perl a suitable first language for those people who want to be able to write general purpose programs for their own use, rather than for commercial, scientific or esoteric theoretical purposes.
A book review by Danny Yee