Chapter 1. Introduction
Welcome to the Llama book!
This is the fifth edition of a book that has been enjoyed by half a million readers since 1993. At least, we hope they’ve enjoyed it. It’s a sure thing that we’ve enjoyed writing it.[2]
Questions and Answers
You probably have some questions about Perl, and maybe even some about this book, especially if you’ve already flipped through it to see what’s coming. So, we’ll use this chapter to answer them.
Is This the Right Book for You?
If you’re anything like us, you’re probably standing in a bookstore right now,[3] wondering whether you should get this Llama book and learn Perl, or maybe that book over there and learn some language named after a snake, or a beverage, or a letter of the alphabet.[4] You’ve got about two minutes before the bookstore manager comes over to tell you that this isn’t a library,[‖] and you need to buy something or get out. Maybe you want to use these two minutes to see a quick Perl program, so you’ll know something about how powerful Perl is and what it can do. In that case, you should check out A Whirlwind Tour of Perl,” later in this chapter.
Why Are There So Many Footnotes?
Thank you for noticing. There are a lot of footnotes in this book. Ignore them. They’re needed because Perl is chock-full of exceptions to its rules. This is a good thing, as real life is chock-full of exceptions to rules.
But it means that we can’t honestly say, “The fizzbin operator frobnicates the hoozistatic variables” without a footnote ...