Any Perl book can show the syntax of Perl's functions, but only The Camel Book is a comprehensive guide to all the nooks and crannies of the language. Any Perl book can describe typeglobs, pseudohashes, and closures, but only this one shows how they really work. Any Perl book can tell the reader that my is faster than local, but only this one explains why. The third edition of Programming Perl has also been expanded to cover Version 5.6 of this maturing language. New sections include threading, compiling, Unicode, and more.

Programming Perl, 3rd Edition, is a unique introduction to the Perl language and its culture, as you might expect only from its authors.

"Paradoxically, the way in which Perl helps you the most has almost nothing to do with Perl, and everything to do with the people who use Perl," says Ellen Siever, co-author of Perl in a Nutshell. "Perl folks are, frankly, some of the most helpful folks on earth. If there's a religious quality to the Perl movement, then this is at the heart of it. Larry wanted the Perl community to function like a little bit of heaven, and he seems to have gotten his wish." Programming Perl, 3rd Edition brings together not only the Perl gurus, but also some of the most helpful people in the Perl community, in order to share their world of knowledge with the rest of us.

Larry Wall is the inventor of Perl, and provides a unique perspective on the evolution of Perl and its future direction. Tom Christiansen was one of the first champions of the language, and lives and breathes the complexities of Perl internals as few other mortals do. Jon Orwant is the editor of The Perl Journal, which has brought together the Perl community as a common forum for new developments in Perl.

"In a nutshell, Perl is designed to make the easy jobs easy, without making the hard jobs impossible," says the legendary creator of Perl, Larry Wall. "Though simple in many ways, Perl is also a rich language, and there is much to learn about it. That's the price of making hard things possible. It will take some time to absorb all that Perl can do, but you'll be glad to have access to the extensive capabilities of Perl when the time comes that you need them."

Part bible, part encyclopedia, and part almanac, Programming Perl, 3rd Edition is the essential book on Perl.

Online Resources:

• Chapter 18, Compiling, is available free online.
• More information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bios, and samples.
• A photo of Larry Wall.
• A photo of Tom Christiansen.
• A photo of Jon Orwant.
• Photos of all three authors together.
• A cover graphic in jpeg format.