Perl in A Nutshell: A Desktop Quick
Reference (2nd Edition) by Nathan
Patwardhan
Excellent
Perl in a Nutshell strives to be a perfect set of socket tools for the active
Perl programmer. By and large, it succeeds, providing endless and well-
thought-out lists and tables on the languages modules, flags, and
extensions. The authors briefly address basic learners questions--such as
the difference between a hash and an array--but these concepts are not
the purpose of the book. (Those new to Perl would be better off with
others in the OReilly Perl series, such as Learning Perl, while
programmers making the switch to Perl can pick up the nuances of the
language with Programming Perl.) This book is pure Perl reference, briefly
covering Perl/Tk (for GUI Perl programs on Unix and Windows 95/NT) and
Perl for Win 32. The authors do start at the very beginning, and even in a
self-described desktop quick reference find the time to comment on less
urgent--but still interesting--Perl-related matters (like how to find online
help amidst the Perl culture). The format of the book makes sections on
topics such as Perl debugging easily understandable, illustrating how to
make an interactive and timesaving environment. Of particular
convenience is the outstanding section on the standard Perl modules. A

four-page quick look allows you to easily scan through short definitions of
all the modules and find the entry youre looking for. An index with full
definitions for each module follows, showing you how to use each module
and providing a more in-depth explanation (and often, examples). Perl in a
Nutshell concludes--as you might expect--with an excellent and well-
cross-referenced index. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Personal Review: Perl in A Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
(2nd Edition) by Nathan Patwardhan
Exactly as advertised, "Perl in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" is a
great reference book if you already have a basic understanding of Perl.
Although it does have a section that it refers to as an "Introduction to Perl"
it is actually a pretty cursory introduction and there are better books for
learning the basics of Perl.The book does have an excellent section on
installing Perl including installation on both the Unix and Windows
platforms. I've worked with both platforms and the installation process is
well documented including how to install modules. This brings us to the
large chapter on getting and installing Perl modules. I have spent hours
sometimes trying to find an appropriate module for a special situation.
This chapter lists all the most common modules and includes descriptions
of what they do. This alone makes it a valuable resource for anyone
involved in Perl.The authors also include a lot of technical information
including command line options and environment variables as well as a
section on program structure, data types, special variables, operators,
expressions, subroutines, filehandles, and just about anything else that
you might need a quick refresher on. Functions are listed both by category
and by alphabetical order with descriptions and syntax information. I had a
couple of problems on a large project recently and it took three days to get
an answer through the forums on the Internet. The answers to all of them
are right here and I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had had
this book then.A lot of other information is available in the book including
CGI programming, Webserver programming, database programming,
SOAP, Network modules including Net, Mail, NNTP, FTP, and LDAP, Perl/
Tk, Win32 Modules and Extensions, OLE Automation, and ODBC
Extensions. This book will be the one I keep close at hand when working
with Perl and deserves its location on my desktop instead of in the library.
"Perl in a Nutshell" is highly recommended for Perl programmers from
basic to advanced level.
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