''Programming Perl '' by Larry Wall, Jon Orwant, and Tom Christiansen

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/covers/pperl3.s.gif 

[ISBN 0-596-00027-8] Third Edition, July 2000. The canonical book about the PerlLanguage. It is written by Perl inventor LarryWall, JonOrwant, and TomChristiansen. Perl nuts affectionately refer to it as "the Camel Book" because of the one-hump dromedary on the cover. In the preface the purpose is stated: -- "this handbook will lead you through both the basics and the intracies. And although we don't intend to teach you how to program, the perceptive reader will pick up some of the art, and a little of the science of programming. We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer ''laziness, impatience and hubris''". (LazinessImpatienceHubris)

* http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/

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'''Comments on other books useful in learning Perl'''

But is it a good book? ProgrammingPerl is one of the first books that gets recommended to somebody learning Perl, but it's pretty encyclopedic. This is good if you want to become a hardcore Perl guru, but the book is so thick that it's difficult to look up specific reference questions. Even if you want to learn about a general topic, it seems that ProgrammingPerl goes into such depth that it can be frustrating and distracting.

ThePerlCookbook is, it seems, a much better way to learn the language. (I'd actually say that ThePerlCookbook is one of the most well-written computer language books I've ever seen, in how it accommodates both absolute newbies and people looking for deeper insight into the language's quirks.)

Beginners should also pick up LearningPerl before ProgrammingPerl. You get a nice camelid either way.

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I usually recommend the ThePerlCookbook to people who are comfortable picking up a language by example, LearningPerl to those who want to methodically work through exercises, and ElementsOfProgrammingInPerl to those who haven't learnt a language before.

-- KirrilyRobert

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So the Beginner should use LearningPerl, Those more advanced or somewhat familiar should use ProgrammingPerl, while both might profit from ThePerlCookbook? PerlBooks might be helpful. -- AnonymousStudent
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