Programming Perl
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant, Christiansen, WALL · first published 1990
42% recommend53% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Witty, authoritative camel book from the language's designer; works for learning Perl from scratch or deepening it, with regex and Unicode chapters praised. Best for readers who already program.
Common criticism: Chatty tone makes it wordy and hard to use as a quick reference
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
<h2>Pringing History</h2> <dl> <dt>January 1991</dt> <dd>First Edition.</dd> <dt>August 1991</dt> <dd>Minor Corrections.</dd> <dt>March 1992</dt> <dd>Minor Corrections.</dd> <dt>September 1996</dt> <dd>Second Edition.</dd> <dt>July 2000</dt> <dd>Third Edition.</dd> </dl>
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What Hacker News says
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…Perl devs moved to Python when Ruby is a much closer fit. Sysadmin tools can't be the reason because Ruby led the way with Chef and Puppet. Perl was my first real programming language back in 2002 and "Programming Perl" was my bible. Larry Wall is a wonderful gentle giant of a leader but unfortunately the community imploded over never-ending debates about OOP and MOP then there was the 15-year Perl 6 energy drain. If…
on “Confessions of a recovering Perl Hacker” ↗…- Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides The C Programming Language - Kernighan, Ritchie The C++ Programming Language - Stroustrup The Scheme Programming Language - Dybvig Practical Common LISP - Seibel Programming Perl - Wall, Christiansen and Orwant ANSI Common Lisp - Graham Refactoring - Fowler UML Distilled - Fowler Introduction to the Theory of Computation - Sisper Information Theory, Inference, and Learning…
on “ASK HN: Hacker Bibles” ↗…MySQL book by Dubois as well as most of the O'Reilly Perl collection. Then I was off to the races. Built an app with CGI::Application which ran a client's business for over a decade without many hiccups. Programming Perl by Larry Wall and Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey Friedl are still some of my favourite tech books.
on “Perl Saved the Human Genome Project (1996)” ↗…intrigued by the Find And Replace options which included regular expressions. At the end of the chapter was a reference to Friel's classic and I found a copy in a local London library. That led me to "Programming Perl" by Larry Wall and the beginning of my career as a developer. The O'Reilly Perl collection is unsurpassed to this day.
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life?” ↗Programming Perl Larry Wall is a mad genius, I don't care if anyone says otherwise. Plus its frequently laugh out loud funny.
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗…missed a shift in tone in that time. But, Perl, to me, was a great learning language. And, I liked Learning Perl, though I think the Camel is a better book, and if you're not a true programming beginner, Programming Perl is the better book to read. Learning Perl teaches Perl and programming at the same time, and may not be the best way to learn either; though, again, I thought it was quite good, and was very empowering…
on “Ask HN: Why hasn't Perl 6 taken off yet?” ↗Definitely. I'd say "Programming Perl" is a literary masterpiece. Larry Wall's genius was selling Perl as a literate, witty, expressive antidote to all the Java and C++ cruft of the late 90s (Perl 5). "Programming Perl" should be read alongside…
on “Laziness Impatience Hubris” ↗- Programming Perl - Perl Cookbook - Mastering Regular Expressions
on “Ask HN: My company will buy me books. What should I get?” ↗…boring, useful. You can skim it and get most of the ideas. The best part about it is building up a vocabulary for discussing common patterns with other software engineers. - Programming Perl. Ah, the camel book. It's possibly the only written-by-the-language-designer reference that's fun to read. Regardless of what your favorite scripting language is, you have to love Larry Wall. - The Mythical Man Month.…
on “Five Memorable Books About Programming” ↗I don't know Perl, but I've read good things about O'Reilly's Programming Perl (also known as The Camel Book). I am looking forward to a time when O'Reilly's Programming Arc exists. It's still too early for that, though.
on “Ask YC: What is the best way to learn Perl?” ↗…and todo lists that run on Google App Engine. LoL is one of very few books published in the last decade that capture the hacker spirit. It ranks right up there with _why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby and Programming Perl[2]. Right now I'm having a blast re-writing old BASIC games in Lisp and then writing programs to beat those games. Most games are easy to beat, but some of them can pose quite a challenge. Fun times…
on “How To Get Started With Lisp” ↗Regardless of their slightly dated information, I'd add to your list the standard 'Perl Cookbook' by Christiansen and Torkington. Likewise 'Programming Perl' by Wall, Christiansen and Orwant. While not perfectly up-to-date, the reader should be able to immediately use the code and if necessary refactor later. Come to think of it the editions I have are of…
on “Perl Programming Best Practices” ↗Along those lines, reading Programming Perl is a pleasure in good part because Larry et al. spend time explaining not just the language but also where some of it comes from and its rationale (or not so rational ;-). Note that I'm referring to…
on “The True Story of the Amazon Door-Desk” ↗…experience programming as closer to expressive linguistic art than engineering. My first programming language was Perl and I had to choose between Java and Perl at the time. If you haven't read Larry Wall's "Programming Perl" I recommend it regardless of the status of Perl in the current scene. It's a classic, written in a warm, witty style. 5 minutes with Deitel and Deitel's turgid Java tome and I was sold on Perl. The point…
on “The myth of using Scala as a better Java” ↗When looking for the best Perl book, I liked "Programming Perl" by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen and Jon Orwant better. Just a fantastic book that is both fun to read and authorative yet still suitable for learning Perl from scratch (for certain readers).
on “Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?” ↗