In many ways, this book is as much a text on programming techniques and computer science concepts as it is a book on Perl. Several chapters are intended to be used as reference. The remaining chapters focus on how key computer science concepts relate to Perl (e.g. references and nested data structures, object oriented programming, etc.). The examples are intended to illustrate these concept and won't necessarily be of much use in a real-life computer program. If you want useable Perl code fragments, check out the Perl Cookbook. If you simply want to get started with Perl (whether or not you have much programming experience), read Learning Perl and pick up this book for it's reference value.

If, on the other hand, you use or intend to use Perl to build robust, powerful applications for a variety of uses, then this is the book for you. The authors' occassional smugness stems from the fact that they take Perl as seriously as any programming language. In that context, this book does an excellent job demonstrating just how powerful this language can be. If you are serious about Perl, chances are that this book will be the most coffee-stained and dog-eared tome in your collection.