| 1 | =head1 NAME |
| 2 | |
| 3 | perlbook - Books about and related to Perl |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 6 | |
| 7 | There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are |
| 8 | good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. There is a list |
| 9 | of these books, some with extensive reviews, at http://books.perl.org/ |
| 10 | . We list some of the books here, and while listing a book implies our |
| 11 | endorsement, don't think that not including a book means anything. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Most of these books are available online through Safari Books Online |
| 14 | ( http://safaribooksonline.com/ ). |
| 15 | |
| 16 | =head2 The most popular books |
| 17 | |
| 18 | The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is |
| 19 | I<Programming Perl>: |
| 20 | |
| 21 | =over 4 |
| 22 | |
| 23 | =item I<Programming Perl> (the "Camel Book"): |
| 24 | |
| 25 | by Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall with Jon Orwant |
| 26 | ISBN 978-0-596-00492-7 [4th edition February 2012] |
| 27 | ISBN 978-1-4493-9890-3 [ebook] |
| 28 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004927 |
| 29 | |
| 30 | =back |
| 31 | |
| 32 | The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to |
| 33 | accomplish specific tasks: |
| 34 | |
| 35 | =over 4 |
| 36 | |
| 37 | =item I<The Perl Cookbook> (the "Ram Book"): |
| 38 | |
| 39 | by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington, |
| 40 | with Foreword by Larry Wall |
| 41 | ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003] |
| 42 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/ |
| 43 | |
| 44 | =back |
| 45 | |
| 46 | If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the |
| 47 | Llama book, which assumes that you already know a little about |
| 48 | programming: |
| 49 | |
| 50 | =over 4 |
| 51 | |
| 52 | =item I<Learning Perl> (the "Llama Book") |
| 53 | |
| 54 | by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy |
| 55 | ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011] |
| 56 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018452 |
| 57 | |
| 58 | =back |
| 59 | |
| 60 | The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which |
| 61 | introduces the intermediate features of references, data structures, |
| 62 | object-oriented programming, and modules: |
| 63 | |
| 64 | =over 4 |
| 65 | |
| 66 | =item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book") |
| 67 | |
| 68 | by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix |
| 69 | foreword by Damian Conway |
| 70 | ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012] |
| 71 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920012689/ |
| 72 | |
| 73 | =back |
| 74 | |
| 75 | =head2 References |
| 76 | |
| 77 | You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard: |
| 78 | |
| 79 | =over 4 |
| 80 | |
| 81 | =item I<Perl 5 Pocket Reference> |
| 82 | |
| 83 | by Johan Vromans |
| 84 | ISBN 978-1-4493-0370-9 [5th edition July 2011] |
| 85 | ISBN 978-1-4493-0813-1 [ebook] |
| 86 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018476/ |
| 87 | |
| 88 | =item I<Perl Debugger Pocket Reference> |
| 89 | |
| 90 | by Richard Foley |
| 91 | ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004] |
| 92 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005030/ |
| 93 | |
| 94 | =item I<Regular Expression Pocket Reference> |
| 95 | |
| 96 | by Tony Stubblebine |
| 97 | ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [July 2007] |
| 98 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514273/ |
| 99 | |
| 100 | =back |
| 101 | |
| 102 | =head2 Tutorials |
| 103 | |
| 104 | =over 4 |
| 105 | |
| 106 | =item I<Beginning Perl> |
| 107 | |
| 108 | by James Lee |
| 109 | ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010] |
| 110 | http://www.apress.com/9781430227939 |
| 111 | |
| 112 | =item I<Learning Perl> |
| 113 | |
| 114 | by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy |
| 115 | ISBN 978-0-596-52010-6 [5th edition June 2008] |
| 116 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106 |
| 117 | |
| 118 | =item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book") |
| 119 | |
| 120 | by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix |
| 121 | foreword by Damian Conway |
| 122 | ISBN 0-596-10206-2 [1st edition March 2006] |
| 123 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102067 |
| 124 | |
| 125 | =item I<Mastering Perl> |
| 126 | |
| 127 | by brian d foy |
| 128 | ISBN 978-0-596-10206-7 [1st edition July 2007] |
| 129 | http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242 |
| 130 | |
| 131 | =item I<Effective Perl Programming> |
| 132 | |
| 133 | by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy |
| 134 | ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010] |
| 135 | http://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/ |
| 136 | |
| 137 | =back |
| 138 | |
| 139 | =head2 Task-Oriented |
| 140 | |
| 141 | =over 4 |
| 142 | |
| 143 | =item I<Writing Perl Modules for CPAN> |
| 144 | |
| 145 | by Sam Tregar |
| 146 | ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002] |
| 147 | http://www.apress.com/9781590590188 |
| 148 | |
| 149 | =item I<The Perl Cookbook> |
| 150 | |
| 151 | by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington |
| 152 | with foreword by Larry Wall |
| 153 | ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [2nd edition August 2003] |
| 154 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135 |
| 155 | |
| 156 | =item I<Automating System Administration with Perl> |
| 157 | |
| 158 | by David N. Blank-Edelman |
| 159 | ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009] |
| 160 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396 |
| 161 | |
| 162 | =item I<Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl> |
| 163 | |
| 164 | by Linchi Shea |
| 165 | ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003] |
| 166 | http://www.apress.com/9781590590973 |
| 167 | |
| 168 | =back |
| 169 | |
| 170 | =head2 Special Topics |
| 171 | |
| 172 | =over 4 |
| 173 | |
| 174 | =item I<Regular Expressions Cookbook> |
| 175 | |
| 176 | by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan |
| 177 | ISBN 978-0-596-52069-4 [May 2009] |
| 178 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520694 |
| 179 | |
| 180 | =item I<Programming the Perl DBI> |
| 181 | |
| 182 | by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes |
| 183 | ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000] |
| 184 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998 |
| 185 | |
| 186 | =item I<Perl Best Practices> |
| 187 | |
| 188 | by Damian Conway |
| 189 | ISBN: 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005] |
| 190 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735 |
| 191 | |
| 192 | =item I<Higher-Order Perl> |
| 193 | |
| 194 | by Mark-Jason Dominus |
| 195 | ISBN: 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005] |
| 196 | http://hop.perl.plover.com/ |
| 197 | |
| 198 | =item I<Mastering Regular Expressions> |
| 199 | |
| 200 | by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl |
| 201 | ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006] |
| 202 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126 |
| 203 | |
| 204 | =item I<Network Programming with Perl> |
| 205 | |
| 206 | by Lincoln Stein |
| 207 | ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001] |
| 208 | http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page |
| 209 | |
| 210 | =item I<Perl Template Toolkit> |
| 211 | |
| 212 | by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley |
| 213 | ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003] |
| 214 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767 |
| 215 | |
| 216 | =item I<Object Oriented Perl> |
| 217 | |
| 218 | by Damian Conway |
| 219 | with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz |
| 220 | ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999] |
| 221 | http://www.manning.com/conway/ |
| 222 | |
| 223 | =item I<Data Munging with Perl> |
| 224 | |
| 225 | by Dave Cross |
| 226 | ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001] |
| 227 | http://www.manning.com/cross |
| 228 | |
| 229 | =item I<Mastering Perl/Tk> |
| 230 | |
| 231 | by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh |
| 232 | ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002] |
| 233 | http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162 |
| 234 | |
| 235 | =item I<Extending and Embedding Perl> |
| 236 | |
| 237 | by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens |
| 238 | ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002] |
| 239 | http://www.manning.com/jenness |
| 240 | |
| 241 | =item I<Pro Perl Debugging> |
| 242 | |
| 243 | by Richard Foley with Andy Lester |
| 244 | ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005] |
| 245 | http://www.apress.com/9781590594544 |
| 246 | |
| 247 | =back |
| 248 | |
| 249 | =head2 Free (as in beer) books |
| 250 | |
| 251 | Some of these books are available as free downloads. |
| 252 | |
| 253 | I<Higher-Order Perl>: http://hop.perl.plover.com/ |
| 254 | |
| 255 | =head2 Other interesting, non-Perl books |
| 256 | |
| 257 | You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of |
| 258 | ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major |
| 259 | Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental: |
| 260 | |
| 261 | =over 4 |
| 262 | |
| 263 | =item I<Programming Pearls> |
| 264 | |
| 265 | by Jon Bentley |
| 266 | ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999] |
| 267 | |
| 268 | =item I<More Programming Pearls> |
| 269 | |
| 270 | by Jon Bentley |
| 271 | ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988] |
| 272 | |
| 273 | =back |
| 274 | |
| 275 | =head2 A note on freshness |
| 276 | |
| 277 | Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at |
| 278 | the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book |
| 279 | lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list |
| 280 | was included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest |
| 281 | released version at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html . |
| 282 | |
| 283 | Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet |
| 284 | scale, but we've included those books because they still describe the |
| 285 | current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day. |
| 286 | Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and |
| 287 | techniques that are still valid today. In general though, we try to |
| 288 | limit this list to books published in the past five years. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | =head2 Get your book listed |
| 291 | |
| 292 | If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | =cut |