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Perl 5 By Example

Review by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

*** Perl 5 By Example (actually the copy from David Medinets Web site is better as it contains corrections. Right now web site is down, but mirrors still can be found on the web ): David Medinets./ Que's October 1996/658 pages/CD-ROM/ISBN: 0789708663; Paperback - 658 pages Bk&Cd-Rom edition (October 1996)
Que Corp; ISBN: 0789708663 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.74 x 9.04 x 7.37
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 55,495
Avg. Customer Review: ****+; Currently it's probably the secondary choice among the open introductory books on Perl. I do not recommend it as an introductory book. David Till's book(see above) is a better introductory book and I realized it hard way -- by teaching the class using Perl5 by Example. Should not be used in the university environment but probably can be OK for self-study, especially if one have some experience with other languages. As an introductory book it's pretty weak -- the author uses too much obscure Perl idioms and many examples are weak and poorly thought out. In case you decided to use it, the book probably should be used only as a reference with Teach Yourself Perl 5 in 21 Days as a primary text. The main advantage of the book is that the full text is available both on the CD-ROM and online from the Web(for example here Perl 5 by Example -- try to search Yahoo! for the mirror nearest to you; ). See also the author interview

David Medinets "... has been programming since 1980, when he starting with a Radio Shack Model 1.". He has written also Visual Basic Script Quick Reference, and HTML Quick Reference, 2nd Edition for Que and also co-authored books on such topics as Lotus Notes, C++, Visual Basic, and Microsoft Office. In past he used REXX that probably is an advantage for any Perl programmer/writer as REXX (although a weaker scripting language) has some features that are difficult to program in Perl. This seems to be his first scripting language book. He is also a co-author of Using Lotus Notes 4 (1996).

The book is conveniently structured into four parts:

Part I: Basic Perl

Part II: Intermediate Perl

Part III: Advanced Perl

Part IV: Perl and the Internet

There are also 5 appendixes:

A - Review Questions
B - Glossary
C - Function List
D - The Windows Registry
E - What's On the CD?

Strangely enough most of readers reviews in the Amazon.com website are quite positive. Here is one example:

[email protected] from Utah , January 30, 1999 ******
The Best Perl Book I've studied
Perl 5 by example is the best Perl book I've studied. I use the Perl 5 book along with the 'CGI For Windows' book to teach an internet/multimedia class, at an University level. 'Perl 5 by example' has an excellent teaching format: Definition, explanation, and hundreds of sample code fragments, to illustrate the point. 'Perl 5 by example' combines beginning concepts, intermediate, and advance Perl programming practices. One of the most valuable sections in 'Perl 5 by example' is the creating reports section. The second most valuable section is the regular expression explanation. I keep the 'Perl 5 by example' book close as a valuable language reference. Database is also a key interest for me. Combining Perl with Sybase and using the reporting capability helps students start learning how to create enterprise wide solutions. Write to me for details on some of the Perl projects that were created using the book. Upon studying this book and reader should have the knowledge to write numerous cgi scripts, create Perl modules, and understand at an intermediate level the Perl language.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers : Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes : Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce : Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds : Larry Wall : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS : Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development : Scripting Languages : Perl history : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month : How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March 12, 2019