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By Damian Conway
July 2005
Pages: 542
ISBN 10: 0-596-00173-8 |
ISBN 13: 9780596001735
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)
Perl Best Practices offers a collection of 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.
Full Description
But if you're serious about your profession, intuition isn't enough. Perl Best Practices author Damian Conway explains that rules, conventions, standards, and practices not only help programmers communicate and coordinate with one another, they also provide a reliable framework for thinking about problems, and a common language for expressing solutions. This is especially critical in Perl, because the language is designed to offer many ways to accomplish the same task, and consequently it supports many incompatible dialects.
With a good dose of Aussie humor, Dr. Conway (familiar to many in the Perl community) offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.
They're designed to work together to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise, but Dr. Conway doesn't pretend that this is the one true universal and unequivocal set of best practices. Instead, Perl Best Practices offers coherent and widely applicable suggestions based on real-world experience of how code is actually written, rather than on someone's ivory-tower theories on how software ought to be created.
Most of all, Perl Best Practices offers guidelines that actually work, and that many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the way.
Praise for Perl Best Practices from Perl community members:
"As a manager of a large Perl project, I'd ensure that every member of my team has a copy of Perl Best Practices on their desk, and use it as the basis for an in-house style guide." -- Randal Schwartz
"There are no more excuses for writing bad Perl programs. All levels of Perl programmer will be more productive after reading this book." -- Peter Scott
"Perl Best Practices will be the next big important book in the evolution of Perl. The ideas and practices Damian lays down will help bring Perl out from under the embarrassing heading of "scripting languages". Many of us have known Perl is a real programming language, worthy of all the tasks normally delegated to Java and C++. With Perl Best Practices, Damian shows specifically how and why, so everyone else can see, too." -- Andy Lester
"Damian's done what many thought impossible: show how to build large, maintainable Perl applications, while still letting Perl be the powerful, expressive language that programmers have loved for years." -- Bill Odom
"Finally, a means to bring lasting order to the process and product of real Perl development teams." -- Andrew Sundstrom
"Perl Best Practices provides a valuable education in how to write robust, maintainable Perl, and is a definitive citation source when coaching other programmers." -- Bennett Todd "I've been teaching Perl for years, and find the same question keeps being asked: Where can I find a reference for writing reusable, maintainable Perl code? Finally I have a decent answer." -- Paul Fenwick "At last a well researched, well thought-out, comprehensive guide to Perl style. Instead of each of us developing our own, we can learn good practices from one of Perl's most prolific and experienced authors. I recommend this book to anyone who prefers getting on with the job rather than going back and fixing errors caused by syntax and poor style issues." -- Jacinta Richardson "If you care about programming in any language read this book. Even if you don't intend to follow all of the practices, thinking through your style will improve it." -- Steven Lembark "The Perl community's best author is back with another outstanding book. There has never been a comprehensive reference on high quality Perl coding and style until Perl Best Practices. This book fills a large gap in every Perl bookshelf." -- Uri GuttmanFeatured customer reviews
Outstanding book, November 29 2006
I have my issues with some of the style dicta in this book -- I will NEVER abandon BSD braces or 3-column indentation -- but, as the book notes, even if you disagree, it's healthy to think seriously about your choices. And, modulo my few immutable prejudices, the style advice is uniformly good.
Even if you never adopt a single practice from this book, just reading it will make you a better Perl programmer. The one drawback is that, for those of us consigned to adopt or maintain others' code, it will make us that much more intolerant of the sloppy, haphazard coding practices that are so common in the system administration world.
A must-have for any Perl programmer, February 13 2006
My reading of each of the rule presented in the book, I found out, follows a rigourous processus.
I always punctuate its disclosure with an outraged "preposterous!". Around mid-section, the initial refutation unavoidly morphs into a "hmmm, I can see his point.. but it ain't for me. It just doesn't jive with my vibes". By the time I've made it to the end, however, it is rare indeed that I haven't seen the light, donned the ritual sackcloth and ashes, sworn to atone for my sins and to walk the straight and narrow from now on.
I consider PbP to be the best programming investment I did this year. It is worth its weight in depleted uranium bars, and is twice as entertaining. I recommend it heartily to all my friends, wether they be Perl programmers or not. It's just that good.
This book should have a camel on the cover, November 28 2005
For years I've been cracking the spine of my
- Programming Perl
- Programming Perl Well
But "there's more than one way to do it"..., August 22 2005
Submitted by Dave [Respond | View]
I haven't read the book, but I found the title intriguing.
Perlians boast rather proudly about how "there's more than one way to do
it" in Perl. They don't point out that this fact means that there are
lots of ways to write confusing, unreadable spaghetti code in Perl. But
while TMTOWTDI can be a handy aspect of the language, I usually walk
away frustrated because they tend to wave it like a banner rather than
showing me with code specifically what these different ways are and what
the relative merits are to each (eg, extensibility, maintainability,
readability, etc).
Anyway, so I find the premise behind this book intriguing because rather
than blowing TMTOWTDI in my face, it sounds like he's stepping forward
and explaining which ways are best for specific goals.
I'm looking forwarding to reading the book when I get a chance.
Dave
Media reviews
"Perl Best Practices is nineteen chapters that exhaustively cover nearly every aspect of the 'style' of perl programming...Even if you disagree and ignore every one of these guidelines (you won't, or, rather if you do, you deserve whatever you get) you'll still improve your coding and Perl understanding. Great backbeat...[and] well worth it. I give it a 10."
-- Andy Bach, Chicago.pm
"I strongly recommend that anyone writing Perl professionally should read this...Overall, a fantastic book. Well written and researched. It's the kind of book I would expect from Damian Conway and I wasn't let down. A must-read for Perl programmers."
-- Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author", Amazon.com
"...the author has done an excellent job of designing a book that produces Perl code that is clear, robust, efficient, maintainable, and concise. At the end of the day, the guidelines in this book, much like Perl itself, are about helping you get your job done, without getting in the way. "
-- John Vacca, "Tech Write Independent Reviewer", Amazon.com
"Suffice to say that Conway leaves no corner of Perl uncovered, offering well-reasoned and well-explained advice on improving your code. The book is also well-written and well-edited. The order of topics covered is a sensible one, and the book is appropriately structured. It reads and feels as if you are being given the wisdom from many a hard-won battle coding and maintaining Perl code… Once you've rushed through Larry's book and learnt the finer points with Schwartz and Phoenix's 'Learning' titles, you may well find that this is the perfect volume to complete your Perl education. If you believe your Perl education is complete, then buy this volume and I'm sure you'll find a lesson or two for yourself."
--Tony Williams (Honestpuck), Slashdot, September 2005
"This isn’t just a dead-tree perldoc perlstyle, it’s a Damianized style guide, introduction to built-ins, structural discussion, and much more. True to usual form, Damian Conway uses humor, excellent examples, and deviousness to tell me why I should apply these best practices in my development. I was amazed at the number of simple utilities and tricks in this book to help me become a better developer... Even if you really are smart enough to know everything in this book, it is an entertaining read, and how often do you really get to enjoy reading a technical book? I can tell it will be a great re-read, cover-to-cover."
--Jason Hall, The Perl Review, June 2005
"As a beginning Perl programmer, I need all the help I can get. Damian Conways' Perl Best Practices is one of the most useful resources I've yet encountered in my quest to create elegant code."
--DrPat, PaperFrigate and Blogcritics, August 2005
Read all reviews
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"Great backbeat...[and] well worth it. I give it a 10."
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