xref: /openbsd/gnu/usr.bin/perl/pod/perlbook.pod (revision cecf84d4) 
1=head1 NAME
2
3perlbook - Books about and related to Perl
4
5=head1 DESCRIPTION
6
7There are many books on Perl and Perl-related. A few of these are
8good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. There is a list
9of these books, some with extensive reviews, at http://books.perl.org/
10. We list some of the books here, and while listing a book implies our
11endorsement, don't think that not including a book means anything.
12
13Most of these books are available online through Safari Books Online
14( http://safaribooksonline.com/ ).
15
16=head2 The most popular books
17
18The major reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is
19I<Programming Perl>:
20
21=over 4
22
23=item I<Programming Perl> (the "Camel Book"):
24
25	by Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall with Jon Orwant
26	ISBN 978-0-596-00492-7 [4th edition February 2012]
27	ISBN 978-1-4493-9890-3 [ebook]
28	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004927
29
30=back
31
32The Ram is a cookbook with hundreds of examples of using Perl to
33accomplish specific tasks:
34
35=over 4
36
37=item I<The Perl Cookbook> (the "Ram Book"):
38
39	by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
40	    with Foreword by Larry Wall
41	ISBN 978-0-596-00313-5 [2nd Edition August 2003]
42	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135/
43
44=back
45
46If you want to learn the basics of Perl, you might start with the
47Llama book, which assumes that you already know a little about
48programming:
49
50=over 4
51
52=item I<Learning Perl>  (the "Llama Book")
53
54	by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
55	ISBN 978-1-4493-0358-7 [6th edition June 2011]
56	http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018452
57
58=back
59
60The tutorial started in the Llama continues in the Alpaca, which
61introduces the intermediate features of references, data structures,
62object-oriented programming, and modules:
63
64=over 4
65
66=item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book")
67
68	by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
69		foreword by Damian Conway
70	ISBN 978-1-4493-9309-0 [2nd edition August 2012]
71	http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920012689/
72
73=back
74
75=head2 References
76
77You might want to keep these desktop references close by your keyboard:
78
79=over 4
80
81=item I<Perl 5 Pocket Reference>
82
83	by Johan Vromans
84	ISBN 978-1-4493-0370-9 [5th edition July 2011]
85	ISBN 978-1-4493-0813-1 [ebook]
86	http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018476/
87
88=item I<Perl Debugger Pocket Reference>
89
90	by Richard Foley
91	ISBN 978-0-596-00503-0 [1st edition January 2004]
92	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005030/
93
94=item I<Regular Expression Pocket Reference>
95
96	by Tony Stubblebine
97	ISBN 978-0-596-51427-3 [July 2007]
98	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514273/
99
100=back
101
102=head2 Tutorials
103
104=over 4
105
106=item I<Beginning Perl>
107
108	by James Lee
109	ISBN 1-59059-391-X [3rd edition April 2010]
110	http://www.apress.com/9781430227939
111
112=item I<Learning Perl>
113
114	by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, and brian d foy
115	ISBN 978-0-596-52010-6 [5th edition June 2008]
116	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520106
117
118=item I<Intermediate Perl> (the "Alpaca Book")
119
120	by Randal L. Schwartz and brian d foy, with Tom Phoenix
121		foreword by Damian Conway
122	ISBN 0-596-10206-2 [1st edition March 2006]
123	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596102067
124
125=item I<Mastering Perl>
126
127	by brian d foy
128	ISBN 978-0-596-10206-7 [1st edition July 2007]
129	http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242
130
131=item I<Effective Perl Programming>
132
133	by Joseph N. Hall, Joshua A. McAdams, brian d foy
134	ISBN 0-321-49694-9 [2nd edition 2010]
135	http://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/
136
137=back
138
139=head2 Task-Oriented
140
141=over 4
142
143=item I<Writing Perl Modules for CPAN>
144
145	by Sam Tregar
146	ISBN 1-59059-018-X [1st edition August 2002]
147	http://www.apress.com/9781590590188
148
149=item I<The Perl Cookbook>
150
151	by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington
152	    with foreword by Larry Wall
153	ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [2nd edition August 2003]
154	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003135
155
156=item I<Automating System Administration with Perl>
157
158	by David N. Blank-Edelman
159	ISBN 978-0-596-00639-6 [2nd edition May 2009]
160	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006396
161
162=item I<Real World SQL Server Administration with Perl>
163
164	by Linchi Shea
165	ISBN 1-59059-097-X [1st edition July 2003]
166	http://www.apress.com/9781590590973
167
168=back
169
170=head2 Special Topics
171
172=over 4
173
174=item I<Regular Expressions Cookbook>
175
176	by Jan Goyvaerts and Steven Levithan
177	ISBN 978-0-596-52069-4 [May 2009]
178	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520694
179
180=item I<Programming the Perl DBI>
181
182	by Tim Bunce and Alligator Descartes
183	ISBN 978-1-56592-699-8 [February 2000]
184	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565926998
185
186=item I<Perl Best Practices>
187
188	by Damian Conway
189	ISBN: 978-0-596-00173-5 [1st edition July 2005]
190	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001735
191
192=item I<Higher-Order Perl>
193
194	by Mark-Jason Dominus
195	ISBN: 1-55860-701-3 [1st edition March 2005]
196	http://hop.perl.plover.com/
197
198=item I<Mastering Regular Expressions>
199
200	by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
201	ISBN 978-0-596-52812-6 [3rd edition August 2006]
202	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126
203
204=item I<Network Programming with Perl>
205
206	by Lincoln Stein
207	ISBN 0-201-61571-1 [1st edition 2001]
208	http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Network-Programming-with-Perl/9780201615715.page
209
210=item I<Perl Template Toolkit>
211
212	by Darren Chamberlain, Dave Cross, and Andy Wardley
213	ISBN 978-0-596-00476-7 [December 2003]
214	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004767
215
216=item I<Object Oriented Perl>
217
218	by Damian Conway
219	    with foreword by Randal L. Schwartz
220	ISBN 1-884777-79-1 [1st edition August 1999]
221	http://www.manning.com/conway/
222
223=item I<Data Munging with Perl>
224
225	by Dave Cross
226	ISBN 1-930110-00-6 [1st edition 2001]
227	http://www.manning.com/cross
228
229=item I<Mastering Perl/Tk>
230
231	by Steve Lidie and Nancy Walsh
232	ISBN 978-1-56592-716-2 [1st edition January 2002]
233	http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927162
234
235=item I<Extending and Embedding Perl>
236
237	by Tim Jenness and Simon Cozens
238	ISBN 1-930110-82-0 [1st edition August 2002]
239	http://www.manning.com/jenness
240
241=item I<Pro Perl Debugging>
242
243	by Richard Foley with Andy Lester
244	ISBN 1-59059-454-1 [1st edition July 2005]
245	http://www.apress.com/9781590594544
246
247=back
248
249=head2 Free (as in beer) books
250
251Some of these books are available as free downloads.
252
253I<Higher-Order Perl>: http://hop.perl.plover.com/
254
255=head2 Other interesting, non-Perl books
256
257You might notice several familiar Perl concepts in this collection of
258ACM columns from Jon Bentley. The similarity to the title of the major
259Perl book (which came later) is not completely accidental:
260
261=over 4
262
263=item I<Programming Pearls>
264
265	by Jon Bentley
266	ISBN 978-0-201-65788-3 [2 edition, October 1999]
267
268=item I<More Programming Pearls>
269
270	by Jon Bentley
271	ISBN 0-201-11889-0 [January 1988]
272
273=back
274
275=head2 A note on freshness
276
277Each version of Perl comes with the documentation that was current at
278the time of release. This poses a problem for content such as book
279lists. There are probably very nice books published after this list
280was included in your Perl release, and you can check the latest
281released version at http://perldoc.perl.org/perlbook.html .
282
283Some of the books we've listed appear almost ancient in internet
284scale, but we've included those books because they still describe the
285current way of doing things. Not everything in Perl changes every day.
286Many of the beginner-level books, too, go over basic features and
287techniques that are still valid today. In general though, we try to
288limit this list to books published in the past five years.
289
290=head2 Get your book listed
291
292If your Perl book isn't listed and you think it should be, let us know.
293
294=cut
295