Reviews for Perl Best Practices

The average rating for Perl Best Practices based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-08 00:00:00 Jenni Fender Hardcore Perl programmers tend to be an audacious bunch. Damian Conway--a superstar and innovator among Perl coders--takes on the audacious task of calling to arms his fellow programmers with a battle cry of "We can do better!". Perl is a complex and highly flexible language that eschews the "one way to do it" philosophy found in other languages. However, Perl provides plenty of digital rope to hang ones self with--especially for coders new to the language. Perl code can be overtly terse or roundabout obfuscated depending on the coder's style, mood, or personal peccadillos. It is for the aforementioned reasons that Perl detractors often refer to Perl as extended "line noise". Perl Best Practices (PBP) tries to address these issues by providing a blueprint for coders to follow in many areas of coding the language. Practices are provided to the reader in soluble form: stated as a Commandment, followed with examples, and supported by logic and reasoning for the practice's existence. Practices range from common sense (Code in paragraphs) to philosophical (If you must rely on cleverness, encapsulate it.). While I do not agree with the author on every single practice--some incredulity is healthy whenever someone is telling you what to do!--I found more than enough information worth retaining in the book to warrant it's cover price. If you are a more-than-casual Perl coder, get this book and read it front to back.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-29 00:00:00 Dmitri Slavin This is a fantastic book that helps address many of the things that are negative about working with Perl in teams. Even through just beginning to standardize on a few of these principles, our group is sharing more code and spending less time discussing pros and cons of various approaches. In addition to the 'encoded practices' aspect of this book, the other 'win' is that it has some nice patterns and idioms for doing common things, and doing them well -- instead of gradually learning those things for yourself over time.