Perl for Dummies 4th Edition

by Paul Hoffman

In the days before personal computers, BASIC was the easy programming language to learn, and serious programmers learned FORTRAN or COBOL to do “real work.” Today, many people have discovered that Perl is both a great beginning programming language and one that enables them to write powerful programs with little effort. If you’re interested in discovering how to program (or how others program), Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, is for you. If you already know something about programming (but not about Perl), this book is also for you. If you’re already an expert programmer, you’re still welcome to read this book; you can just skip the basic stuff (you never know what kind of new tips and tricks you’ll pick up). This reference guide shows you how to use Perl under many different operating systems, such as UNIX, many flavors of Windows (Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP), and Macintosh OS 9 and OS X; in fact, Perl runs on many more operating systems than these. Here's a sampling of what Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, has to The Perl programming language enables you to write fully working computer programs with just a few steps. It’s particularly good at common programming tasks, such as reading and writing text files, but it also excels at reducing the work that programmers have to do. Perl For Dummies, 4th Edition, shows you how to do all of that and how to modify programs to your heart’s content. After all, one of the common phrases in the world of Perl programmers is, “There's more than one way to do it.”

Genres: Programming, Reference, Computers, Nonfiction, Technical

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Paul Hoffman (born 1956) is a prominent author and host of the PBS television series Great Minds of Science. He was president and editor in chief of Discover, in a ten-year tenure with that magazine, and served as president and publisher of Encyclopaedia Britannica before returning full-time to writing and consulting work.

He lives in Woodstock, New York. Author of at least ten books, he has appeared on CBS This Morning and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as a correspondent. Hoffman is also a puzzlemaster using the pseudonym Dr. Crypton. He designed the puzzle in the 1984 book Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse. He also designed the treasure map in the 1984 film, Romancing the Stone, starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito.

Hoffman holds a B.A. degree summa cum laude from Harvard. He is the winner of the first National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

[Nhi]

I learned perl, I can now program using perl but only if I have a reference book in front of me and a problem statement to follow. The examples in this book were too basic and doing them didn't really solidify my learning of the subject which is why I need a reference when programming with PERL. I don't recommend this book for non-dummies

[RJ]

Perl for Dummies (Fourth Edition) by Paul Hoffman (2003)

[Chang]

It was a great reference!

[Delhi Irc]

Location: GG7 IRC
Accession no: DL028129

[TofurkyVectrex64]

Changed my life.