Effective Perl Programming: Ways to Write Better, More Idiomatic Perl, Second Edition

Introduction

“Learning the fundamentals of a programming language is one thing; learning how to design and write effective programs in that language is something else entirely.” What Scott Meyers wrote in the Introduction to Effective C++ is just as true for Perl.

Perl is a Very High Level Language—a VHLL for the acronym-aware. It incorporates high-level functionality like regular expressions, networking, and process management into a context-sensitive grammar that is more “human,” in a way, than that of other programming languages. Perl is a better text-processing language than any other widely used computer language, or perhaps any other computer language, period. Perl is an incredibly effective scripting tool for UNIX administrators, and ...