Perl Cookbook, Second Edition

Perl Pocket Reference, 4th Edition

Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition

Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules

Programming the Perl DBI

Perl Books

Programming Perl (3rd Edition)

Format: Paperback
Author: Larry Wall
ReleaseDate: 14 July, 2000
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Rating:

Buy the 3rd edition, not the 2nd edition
The 2nd edition was a lot better than the 1st edition, but it is not nearly as good as the 3rd edition. I have owned every edition of this book. The 3rd edition is the best perl reference book that you can buy. Period.

An Encyclopedic Reference -- or a Baptism by Fire
If it's in Perl, it's in this book, as far as I can tell. "Programming Perl" simply has everything about Perl you will ever need to know. Finding what you're looking for will be another matter. The organization of this volume leaves much to be desired. But the index is pretty helpful so searching through this book is a little like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but with a magnet in hand.

But don't let the name fool you: This book is not the place to learn Perl, as I found the hard way. It just simply assumes too much knowledge on the part of the reader, and has a horrendous paucity of example code. If Perl is something you are going to explore and use to a great extent, "Programming Perl" will eventually become indispensible to you, I am certain. But if you are new to the language: DANGER! DANGER! ABUNAI!

All things considered, I would give it four stars -- five for its breadth of coverage minus one for its poor organization. But the book's title implies that it is meant as an introduction to Perl, but an introduction it just ain't! The authors say as much themselves in their introduction, but I think the unsuspecting novice deserves to see it on the front cover too. So I am taking away one more star for a total of three.

"Programming Perl": a great reference, a horrid learning tool.

Essential reference for all Perl programmers
I also recomment O'Reilly's "Learning Perl" as a good predecessor to this book. This book is a must have reference for all Perl programmers.