Comments on: Perl Best Practices

By: Richard S. Smith

Richard S. Smith — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:30:34 +0000

“Perl Best Practices” provides a good tour of the current features of

Perl 5.8.x and sheds light on all the corners of the language except

one. I didn’t understand why there is no info on Win32 Perl (use

“chomp” instead of “chop”, stuff like that). The book would have been

better if it hadn’t shied away from that. It seems like Conway

decided to leave OS-specific best practices for another book. Apart

from that one gripe the book is quite good and will force the reader

to think about ways to improve his programming even though no one will

agree with everything. The books strongest point is that it touches

on the oldest parts of the language and also some really new stuff

like importing Perl 6 behavior via CPAN modules, and ties it all

together into a coherent body of thought. The thing that really

shines is how much Conway understands how Perl works as a programming

language and is honest about where it’s lacking. Apart from the

absence of any Win32 or other OS-specific content, this book is a

treasure and worth owning and referring to often.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: G. Carlo Tarantino

G. Carlo Tarantino — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:42:37 +0000

Talks about many topics. Some are at my level of comprehension, other are too technical for me. Some chapters are really very interesting, other less (typical consideration on a book that writes about so many different topics).

I strongly suggest to read this book, it makes you aware of many good practices and ideas.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: Liag Iba

Liag Iba — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:19:00 +0000

Writing s{ ,z }{}xms when you mean s/,$// (as suggested in this book) is borderline idiocy. If I wanted to be needlessly verbose, I would have written it in Java. s/,$// is concise and works in sed and vi too.
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Marcus Hudson

Marcus Hudson — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:01:43 +0000

This book will not help you write better code. It is filled with useless tips like “ALWAYS CALL SUBROUTINES WITH PARENTHESES” and “ALWAYS RETURN VIA AN EXPLICIT RETURN”. How silly! Stick to the advice found in Programming Perl (aka the Perl Bible).
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Mario Williams

Mario Williams — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:09:20 +0000

The author has compiled a list of arbitrary recommendations (“use four-column indention levels”, “don’t use the ‘unless’ statement”, “always use the /x flag on regexes”). You are bound to gain more from almost any other Perl book out there which explores the language and not the author’s pet peeves.
Rating: 1 / 5