On DefinitivePerlBooks, ''LearningPerl'' by Schwartz and Christiansen is called "The most commonly recommended book for anyone needing a gentler introduction than the Blue Camel [CamelBook]". After ''Learning Perl'', you should get hold of ''IntermediatePerl'' (ISBN 0596102062) - formerly ''Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules'' (ISBN 0596004788). http://learn.perl.org/ lists a number of good PerlLanguage books.

As you get into Perl (or are coming from another language where you already have a OO grounding) and want to know how to implement OO behaviour in a Perlish way, you would do well to read DamianConway's book ''ObjectOrientedPerl''. It is also well worth checking out the ManPage''''''s perlboot and perltoot. -- DarrenTarbard

You can learn PerlLanguage from the free books at perl.org's online library: http://www.perl.org/books/library.html In addition, ''Learning Perl the Hard Way'' (http://www.greenteapress.com/perl/) is a free PDF book appropriate for programmers experienced in other languages.

comp.lang.perl.misc (http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.perl.misc) is an excellent help group where you can ask any question on Perl programming, but please read the FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/comp/comp.lang.perl.misc.html) and the Posting Guidelines (http://mail.augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc/clpmisc_guidelines.html) first.

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If anyone here really does want to learn Perl, I would highly suggest a book by Ellie Quigley, based on a popular class she teaches, and called '''Perl by Example'''. You will want the third edition (ISBN: 0-13-655689-2). -- JoshuaKerievsky

Really? Having read that one I found it to be atrocious. Perhaps not quite the worst I've seen, but fairly bad anyway (in fact, I'm yet to be impressed by any of that publisher's produce). -- IainTruskett

''Having had a look through a copy I just found in my office, I'm not impressed at all - it strikes me as being like trying to learn a language from a phrasebook. The approach of LearningPerl is much more logical. Anyway, Amazon says this one is now out of print, so I would definitely recommend against it. As a general point, Perl learners should consider joining their local Perl Mongers chapter - see http://www.pm.org/ for details. Having a friendly community around to talk to and ask questions of helped my learning process immensely. -- EarleMartin''

I'm surprised to see any book Joshua favors disliked by other. I know he demands a great deal from anyone who claims to educate. Perhaps my unorthodox introduction has colored his expectation in this case. I taught Joshua perl in an afternoon over a chat connection. I did this by creating HelloWorld as a cgi scrip on my server and aliasing the source as a .txt file he could read. We then discussed things that the script might do. I would implement one of these in a line or two that he could read and try. In the few cases where the perl idioms were not obvious a line or two of chat was enough to make the program clear. -- WardCunningham

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Hello folks,

This is my first day at Wiki. I am enjoying this here even though I admit that its a bit of CultureShock for me. This page will essentially deal with PerlProgramming and getting started with it. I am an amateur Perl programmer and I have had a number of people asking me on how to learn Perl, where to get started etc. Though I have given them directions, I am sure they haven't still started learning Perl yet. Frankly am not an expert (I learnt Perl over a weekend ) so I am not even sure if I was giving them right directions. Here I would like suggestions on where a person should start if he/she wants to learn Perl. We can discuss people from different backgrounds and how each one would get started. This is essential because a Java programmer thinks differently from a person who hasn't had any programming experience at all. I'll try to update this as frequently as possible. I already have a few ideas on this. -- PerlPathi

* came across this intro Perl page from a person who has written lots of material on HTML, etc. Location is at http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/perl/course.html
** Is it suitable for beginners?
*** No. It uses at least four outdated and/or dangerous idioms which beginners should avoid until they understand the language:
**** Use of the comma operator to concatenate output for a print statement.
**** Use of the two-argument form of open (and minor nit: using '||' instead of 'or' for the die statement).
**** All variables are declared global instead of lexical with 'my'. This code will not pass 'use strict'.
**** Use of the &sub calling convention.

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See also LearningProgrammingLanguages, CommonGatewayInterface (for CGI questions)
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CategoryBooks IwannaLearn CategoryPerl