The first book you picked up to learn Perl probably had a llama on its cover. You then picked up the camel book to continue your education. There was a gap though between those two books, an introduction to object orientated perl was missing. Well, Randal has now written the prefect bridging book in Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules(LPORM). This book should be on your shelf if your new to perl, or even if you've used perl for the past years only for short scripts. LPORM will move your perl from scripts to programs.
After an introductory chapter, Schwartz jumps right into making your perl programs better. By using seven castaways from a three hour tour, we learn the basics of refactoring and module usage. The next three chapters gently introduce references and advanced data structures. The difference in these five chapters and the same subject matter from the Advanced Perl Programming (APP) book is the level of the target audience. Here Schwartz walks the reader through each topic with code examples, where APP gave the information in a dryer, more mater of fact-ly format. Where APP was for experienced programmers, LPORM is for newer programmers.
The following for four chapters discussed Object Orientated Programming, perl style. With the help of a talking horse, the reader is stepped through basic OOP principles such as inheritance, destruction (a _whole_ chapter on object destruction), and others. This section of the book is where many will find benefit. Schwartz finishes the book sliding into module creation, testing and distribution via CPAN. These chapters are essential for putting a professional shine on your perl.
In all, I think this book is needed by all newer perl programmers and those that wish to take their perl to the next level. The price point of US$35 may seem steep for only 205 pages, but LPORM is packed with information that will help. The book was free of glaring technical or grammatical errors to boot.
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