Rating: 

Pros: excellent introduction. Much hand-holding. No fear of missing the next step--the authors really teach their material very well.

Cons: Much hand-holding. After two weeks I've finished the book and I know I'll never use it as a reference--I'll have to buy the Camel book for that. While Learning Perl is a very well-written introduction that teaches a new subject very well, the lack of larger, significant exercises/projects and the relatively small scope of the book leave me feeling that something was lacking from my rather expensive purchase. (O'Reilly books are bloody expensive here in Australia!)