Not well presented and not useful as a direct reference the Learning Perl Objects, Reference & Modules is more useful. Maybe I will revisit this someday and see how I still feel about it. ( )

Any programming book that claims to be "advanced" faces many challenges straight from the get-go. First of all, you have to be very careful to know who your audience is, and make sure anyone casually flipping through your book can figure that out. Secondly, you have to be sure the material really is advanced for the audience you're targeting. Advanced Perl Programming stands up to this test, and passes is with flying colors. Overall a wonderful book, with several minor issues that don't detract from this otherwise excellent programming book.

First, be sure you know that you're the audience. This book isn't targeted for those who are already advanced, but Perl programmers who are only beginning and understand the language concepts. It is an extension of Programming Perl, giving more depth and time on advanced concepts.

The best part is it doesn't just cover language concepts but also applications. It starts off with a review of references, the Perl equivalent to a pointer, and covers several other language concepts. It gives an in depth explanation of object oriented programming with Perl as well as using sockets. If I had to applaud just one topic this book touches on, it would be the embedding of Perl. I bought this book several years ago, and no matter how much I know about and use Perl, I always have to crack it open to reference the chapters regarding embedding and extending the Perl language. These chapters give concise yet complete explanations for embedding Perl interpreters into C programs as well as embedding C code into Perl programs, something which is often overlooked as an option.

At times, the book becomes a bit hefty, and there are a few portions where some details could have been left out or made clearer with a little change in terminology. Primarily, for beginners, the first chapter seems to be a little confusing, but that confusion quickly fades. Overall a wonderful tome. ( )