Customer Rating:  
Summary: Not for those new to programming
Comment: While this may be an excellent primer for programmers who are new to Perl (I don't know), it's not the best place to start for those who are entirely new to programming, like me. This book assumes you have some familiarity with programming. I found the Visual Quickstart guide much easier to pick up from scratch.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The most entertaining education a geek can get.
Comment: There's a LOT of bad computer books. There are many good ones. There are a few that are downright fun. If you're not sure you want to learn Perl, get this book. You'll have fun and by the time it's over, you'll have learned it anyway.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Love the footnotes and asides
Comment: For now the only thing I can say is that I breezed through the Regular Expressions chapters in one night. Learned nearly all I had to learn about that most important facet of programming from this book. Glad I did because I just donwloaded VIM text editor and can now use regular expressions to do searches on my documents. I've also begun using regular expressions in JavaScript. Thought it was such a formidable subject when I encountered it the first time around in JS. Piece of cake. Thanks to the Llama book.If you don't learn Perl from this book, you'll at least enjoy the jokes and asides that are practically on every page.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rare entertainment in a programming book
Comment: This book is a well-paced intoduction to Perl. They cover sticking points like "context" (which is how Perl is so free flowing) to the point where you are dam(n) sure to have it straight. Short examples highlight everything, and the lessons it comes with (with explanations at the back) are a very, very nice touch.
As a bonus, it's funny and engagingly written. Follow this one up with Programming Perl, the much faster paced 'mother book' of Learning Perl.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not The Best
Comment: This book _is_:
-funny
-relatively concise
-a decent book on the languageThis book _is not_:
-good for the beginning perl programmer. Basically, this book tries to cover too much in some areas and not nearly enough of some other topics. Hashes get their own chapter, but it's miniscule. On the other hand, the intricacies of dealing with list v. scalar context are covered in depth. From personal experience, however, hashes are one of the most useful features of perl. My suggestion: start with perlmonks.org and the Camel. Between the two of them, you'll find everything you need to know.
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