From: Walker, Michael E Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2016 12:47 PM To: 'Aaron Wells' Subject: RE: Question about Beginning Perl by Simon Cozens
Thank you all for sharing your perspective on this. I will compare both the first and second editions of Beginning Perl. Cozens’ writing style really resonates with me, because of the problem-solving approach he takes when introducing each Perl concept. For example, even though the book is outdated in some respects, I appreciated his examples on using the while loop to create a number guessing game, and as the book progressed, I saw something in there about computing a Taylor series. I believe I also saw a Fibonacci series. I also like how he describes file processing in depth. This contrasts with a lot of books I have seen where instead of problem-solving, it seems that simple examples are introduced, to demonstrate each language feature. Mike From: Aaron Wells [mailto:chacewe...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2016 12:06 PM To: Walker, Michael E Subject: Re: Question about Beginning Perl by Simon Cozens Edit: s/done/fine/ On Thu, Sep 1, 2016, 10:04 AM Aaron Wells <chacewe...@gmail.com<mailto:chacewe...@gmail.com>> wrote: Because Perl 5 has been committed to backward compatibility, I think beginning Perl is still a good reference for learning the Perl fundamentals. You'll learn the main concepts that make Perl Perl. And as with all things, it depends on what you're up to. If you're doing systems administration or automating things, sticking with that level is done. Application development is a different story though. "Modern Perl" will get you up to speed with the tools and techniques application developers are using to get application up and running faster with fewer bugs. On Thu, Sep 1, 2016, 9:53 AM Walker, Michael E <michael.e.walk...@boeing.com<mailto:michael.e.walk...@boeing.com>> wrote: Hi, even though Beginning Perl dates back to 2000, is it still relevant for learning today? I wondered, because when Googling, I saw posts recommending against its use, but yet it is still listed at books.perl.org<http://books.perl.org>. Please discuss, or point me to the archive on this list where this has been discussed. Thank you.
