Learning Perl, 8th Edition

Preface

Welcome to the eighth edition of Learning Perl, updated for Perl 5.34 and its latest features. This book is still mostly good even if you are still using Perl 5.8 (although, it’s been a long time since it was released; have you thought about upgrading?).

If you’re looking for the best way to spend your first 30 to 45 hours with the Perl programming language, you’ve found it. In the pages that follow, you’ll find a carefully paced introduction to the language that is the workhorse of the internet, as well as the language of choice for system administrators, web hackers, and casual programmers around the world. We’ve designed this book based on the in-person classes we teach, so we’ve timed the book for a week’s worth of work.

We hope you’re reading this preface before you buy the book, because there’s a historical hiccup that may cause some confusion. There’s another language, Perl 6, that started off as a replacement for Perl 5 but then went out on its own with the new name “Raku” (although brian’s book on that language is still Learning Perl 6).

Along with that, there’s currently a move to make a new major version of Perl, Perl 7. That’s supposed to be Perl v5.34 with different defaults as a baby step to evolving the language. Since it’s basically Perl 5, it should be able to run Perl 5 programs, although perhaps with a compatibility switch. As we write this, we’re not sure how that will shake out. After you finish this book, you may like to read another book by brian, Preparing ...