Simon Cozens has updated his advanced perl book to reflect the current practice of basing complex programs on open source code available from CPAN, rather than writing it from scratch. The second edition of Advanced Perl Programming targets any programmer interested in writing production-ready perl.

(Click for larger view of the CPANther)

According to Cozens, becoming an advanced perl user does not involve accessing hidden modes or features. Instead, it requires learning from from experience what's available, what works, and what does not work.

Cozens says the second edition of Advanced Perl Programming brings the work up-to-date with advances in the language over the last five years. Of these, the most significant has been a shift toward open source perl code reuse. Cozens explains, “The focus of development has shifted from writing complicated code yourself to using other people's complicated code available from CPAN.”

Cozens says the new edition covers “all the complex techniques for production-ready Perl programs,” including introspection, overriding built-ins, extending Perl's object-oriented module, and testing code for great stability. Other topics include parsing, templating tools, Unicode, interaction with C and other languages, and working with natural language data. In addition, the book demystifies object-relational mapping and event-based development, Cozens says, adding, “There's going to be something for every programmer here.”

“My hope is that readers will discover that someone has already done the hard work for them; that there's a huge collection of ready-made modules out there, and at least one of them will apply to whatever they're trying to do. Maybe my book won't give them the exact answer they need, but it will hopefully open their eyes to where to find the answers,” said Cozens.

Availability

The 304-page Advanced Perl Programming is available now, direct from O'Reilly, priced at $39.95. A sample chapter on templating tools is also available.

 
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