Can you guys recommend a really good book to learn perl and cgi programming. I have messed around with some code but I want to dig into it now. I have looked around and there are so many books it's not even funny. I can't stand books that are all tech and the authors assume everyone has had some form of programming experiance.

Step by step examples would be very helpful in learning perl and cgi.

Dave

1st, perl and cgi are two different subjects, they are not synonomous.

For perl, I would recommend the O'reily books, Learning Perl, Programming Perl, and The Perl Cookbook.

--Mark

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You can reach my by ICQ at UID# 8602162

The following books are considered the best for learning Perl. I use them daily in my work. The main "bible" of Perl is Programming Perl by Larry Wall, the creator of Perl. He presents the language from his perspective.

Best for learning: Learning Perl 2nd Ed, O'Reilly press
Best Perl Reference/Overall: Programming Perl, O'Reilly Press
Good Reference, Idea Book: Perl Cookbook, O'Reilly Press

All these books are available at Amazon.com or through the Perl web site: www.perl.com

Why O'Reilly? Well, simply put, they write books on programming that are actually fun to read, and are full of tons of info. I suggest them for any project. Keep in mind, you MUST learn Perl BEFORE you decide to actually code a CGI application, it will really make a difference in your code and to your finished product.

Once you get good a PERL (give yourself a good week of practice and use), then you can start learning CGI. My recommendation would be to read the documentation on CGI.pm that comes with Perl itself. Once you understand the basics of Perl, it is by far best to learn how to perform tasks from the documentation Perl comes with, it builds your skill and confidence as a programmer.

Hope this helps.


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Fred Hirsch
Web Consultant & Programmer

I appreciate the question and the answers in this thread. I bought "Learning Perl" yesterday. The foreward is worth the price of the whole book! The rest is excellent too, although it does assume previous programming experience.



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JPD

If you want a few free books to look at on the web i recomend going to ,
www.mcp.com
They have about 6-10 books there , free to read online.

Drew

JPDeni,

Learning Perl is an excellent resource. It would be my prefered recommendation, however, if you need a book which is more tailored towards non-programmers, try out some of the CUE or SAMS books such as Perl in 21 Days. These books are a little more structured towards learning basics of Perl, usually from an outlook of Perl4.

You might find relearning Perl after that a bit of a task. I found after learning Perl in 7 Days with SAMS, that after 6 months of programming I was not able to do the things with PERL it promised to do, and that was simply my lack of understanding.

Perl as a programming language was written from the aspect of a spoken language. That makes learning it very easy, as long as you retain that ideal while learning and writing Perl.

Just some thoughts,


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Fred Hirsch
Web Consultant & Programmer