Learning Perl on Win32 Systems

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Learning Perl on Win32 Systems
Randal L. Schwartz,Tom Christiansen,Erik Olsen | 1997-08-01 00:00:00 | O'Reilly Media | 312 | Linux
In this smooth, carefully paced course, leading Perl trainers and a Windows NT practitioner teach you to program in the language that promises to emerge as the scripting language of choice on NT. Perl for Win32 is a language for easily manipulating text, files, user and group profiles, performance and event logs, and registry entries. Based on the "llama book," Learning Perl on Win32 Systems features tips for PC users and new NT-specific examples, along with a foreword by Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, and Dick Hardt, the creator of Perl for Win32. The contents include:

An introduction to "the Perl way" for Windows usersA quick tutorial stroll through Perl in one lessonSystematic, topic-by-topic coverage of Perl's broad capabilitiesInnumerable, brief code examplesProgramming exercises for each topic, with fully worked-out answersAccess to NT system functions through PerlDatabase access with PerlCGI programming with PerlPerl modules for OLE automation and the Registry

Reviews
Very good basic Perl book, helped me out quite a bit, if you are new to Perl like I was this gives you a good basic understanding.
Reviews
This book provided a reasonable introduction to the language elements. As a complete novice, I learned enough to read CGI scripts. It was helpful to work on the well-done examples and then to look at the answers. I would have preferred a "log cracking" example rather than "secret words". Although I got the syntax of the hashes, I missed their glory in solving problems. The regular expression examples were good, but I could have used a full-blown example here also. This book sent me searching for CGI/web packages, such as the database package DBI (which may have been more useful than the DBM), the graphics package (GD), and more on writing HTML code from Perl scripts.
Reviews
I concur with the bulk of the reviews here: This is a shallow book, especially given Perl's scope. But it WILL help Windows folks understand many of the key Perl concepts that otherwise go unmentioned.

And that's the major point here. The book may be a trivial intro to Perl, but at least it doesn't assume you're a *NIX weenie. After getting annoyed reading the 3rd edition of the camel book, I bought this book. It was helpful in clearing up all those references to the weird stuff that *NIX dudes apparently are born knowning, and got me quickly into writing simple Perl scripts.

You want heavy details of the Win32 or NT-specific functions? Go read the POD embedded in those modules. Or get a different book.

This is "LEARNING Perl on Win32 Systems"... I read it in about 6 hours, total, cover to cover. And in that time it provided just about as good an intro as I could hope for.
Reviews
I found that this book was good, particularly for the Win32 platform, and recommend it to anyone who uses Windows, regardless of their initial interest in programming. The only problems I had with the book are that the CGI (and OOP, which is introduced only in the context of CGI...but it could be so much more) chapter is left in limbo as far as being able to use any of the examples. If it were used on a Unix webserver (which are almost always setup to handle Perl CGI scripts), the examples would work fine. However, this is Perl for Win32, so IIS or PWS (if possible...I don't think it is, however) should be the web platforms targetted, and a "quick and dirty" setup instruction would be good to be able to test those examples.
Reviews
I know this book has been bashed by some of the Amazon reviewers. However, I think the book has a particular audience (no surprise by the title): new Perl developers who are not from a UNIX background. It succeeds for that audience.

I love the O'Reilly books on Perl, and this book is written by the most influential people in Perl (apart from Larry).

I come from a UNIX background, I still found this book helpful. In fact, I even bought the book for my brother-in-law, who wanted to learn Perl on Win32.

The Activestate Win32 Perl distribution was a baby at the time of the release - it would be nice if it could be updated, especially regarding Perl Package Manager. This is nitpicking, though.

To quote James Taylor, this book is "enough to be on your way". It gets the novice initiated into Perl and hungry for more. After that, there are some great O'Reilly titles (The Camel Book, the DBI book, the Sys Admin book) and Lincoln Stein titles (The CGI.pm book for web development, the socket book), as well as the Internet to move to.

I really love the O'Reilly Perl for Sys Admins book. It seems like I go back to that book and find something new each time.

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