Perl Hacks

How This Book Is Organized

Chapter 1, Productivity Hacks

Admit it. When you sit down to code, something annoys you. It may be repetitive commands, looking up documentation, or the fact that your coworkers just can't align their equals signs. Getting rid of those interruptions and annoyances will make your life easier and your coding sessions more enjoyable. This chapter suggests a few ideas.

Chapter 2, User Interaction

Menus, graphics, beeps, and command lines: these are all ways your programs grab user attention. Do it kindly. Do it with style. Do it with convenience. This chapter is all about working with other people.

Chapter 3, Data Munging

What does Perl love to extract and report? Data! Hook it up to databases and set it loose on files. It's so easy you might not realize that your code is, well, slow and kludgy. That's okay. Take the tips in this chapter to heart and you can polish your Perl to slice and dice data again.

Chapter 4, Working with Modules

Perl 5's unit of reusable code is the module. When you unleash the power of modules—whether your own or those written by other people—you're on track to becoming a real guru. To do that, you need to go beyond the idea "one file, one namespace, one module." You need to understand what makes them work and how to exploit all of the clever possibilities they provide. This chapter leads the way.

Chapter 5, Object Hacks

Abstraction, encapsulation, and genericity are the keys to designing large, maintainable systems. Objects are ...