In search of Perl tutorials.

[Matt Garrish]

Agreed on the legality, and appologies for posting the link in the first
place, but I wouldn't say these older Perl books are useless. Unlike PHP
Perl hasn't changed an awful lot from 5.0 as a whole and I found Learning
Perl for Win32 a very valuable resource, even if a little out of date.

Another way to look at this is that I'm also a low-vision screen reader
user. Should I want to get a physical book from say Amazon, it does not
come in a format in which I could read it conveniently.

O'Reilly publishes their books online (http://safari.oreilly.com/).

Matt

 

[Paul Lalli]

O'Reilly publishes their books online (http://safari.oreilly.com/).

They also have the Perl CD Bookshelf, which has all their books on CD.
Which, I presume, is how the aforementioned illegal site put all the
books online.

Paul Lalli

 

[xhoster]

I understand what you're getting at, Xho, but I think you missed Tad's
point. 'a' and 'several' in the above examples tell you in which
context 'fish' is. The fact that a Perl array returns its size in
scalar context is a detail of what happens once context has been
determined.

There are two separate issues now being addressed:
1) How do we determine in which context a certain expression is being
evaluated?
2) What does that expression return in each context?

I think those are two very different problem sets.

I agree, but I think that the OP was mystified about both issues jointly,
and Tad was inappropriately (given the context of the OP) neglecting the
second aspect. (But mostly, I was just being a smartass.)

Xho

 

[Veli-Pekka Tätilä]

They also have the Perl CD Bookshelf, which has all their books on CD.

Ah silly me, i should have known, though too bad you cannot get those
e-books here locally. I'll be sure to get any O'Reilly Perl books legally
then in the future, when Perl 6 will come out, for instance. Thanks for
reminding me that especially in computer science stuff, the number of
on-line books is fortunately increasing. Still, there are books that are
hard to come by legally in an accessible format, but that's the way it is.
I'm glad that projects like Bookshare do exist.

Which, I presume, is how the aforementioned illegal site put all the
books online.

Which reminds me, I've already appologized for my actions and won't be
posting similar links from now on. But should I go as far as requesting the
removal of my original message from Google Groups? I normally don't use the
no archive flag.

Well I guess the link I posted is publically known anyway. That's because
when shall we say innocently Googling for Perl related things on-line, the
book site ranks near the top quite often. That's no defence, really, just
mentioning that it's easy to find this material even if you don't intend to,
which I find ironic.

On a lighter if a little unrelated side note, the Learning Perl for Win32
book refers to a thing called Perl: The Motion Picture. Where's the home for
this project? I've tried googling but cannot find it. It sure sounds
interesting having scene Quake and Star Wars in ASCII already.

 

[John Bokma]

[ Perl Bookshelf CD ]

Ah silly me, i should have known, though too bad you cannot get those
e-books here locally.

I am sure you can. The Bookshelves are sold in bookstores. They even look
like books, and IIRC they often come with one book (which is also on the
CD).

I'll be sure to get any O'Reilly Perl books
legally then in the future, when Perl 6 will come out, for instance.

Don't hold your breath :-D.

Which reminds me, I've already appologized for my actions and won't be
posting similar links from now on. But should I go as far as
requesting the removal of my original message from Google Groups?

If you ask me, no. Anyone who wants those books and reads this group knows
how to get them in less time it takes you to remove that message...

 

[Matt Garrish]

[ Perl Bookshelf CD ]

Ah silly me, i should have known, though too bad you cannot get those
e-books here locally.

I am sure you can. The Bookshelves are sold in bookstores. They even look
like books, and IIRC they often come with one book (which is also on the
CD).

I'll be sure to get any O'Reilly Perl books
legally then in the future, when Perl 6 will come out, for instance.

Don't hold your breath :-D.

Which reminds me, I've already appologized for my actions and won't be
posting similar links from now on. But should I go as far as
requesting the removal of my original message from Google Groups?

If you ask me, no. Anyone who wants those books and reads this group knows
how to get them in less time it takes you to remove that message...

You can be a good corporate citizen and let O'Reilly know about the abuse.
Send an email to (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> citing
the url and then they can decide how vigorously they want to pursue the
matter.

Matt

 

[Paul Lalli]

You can be a good corporate citizen and let O'Reilly know about the abuse.
Send an email to (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> citing
the url and then they can decide how vigorously they want to pursue the
matter.

I have emailed that address several times (pretty much every time the
URL in question is mentioned at a site I visit). I have thus far
received only one response, a generic "thank you" for informing them.
My conclusion is that O'Reilly is either unable to force the removal of
the illegal material, or unwilling to expend the effort to do so.

Paul Lalli

 

[John Bokma]

You can be a good corporate citizen and let O'Reilly know about the
abuse. Send an email to (e-mail address removed)
<[email protected]> citing the url and then they can decide how
vigorously they want to pursue the matter.

I have done several times so, in the past (I contacted Randal first, I
think there was a thread running in this group about it).

OTOH, I am sure oreilly is smart enough to have a bot run daily which does
things like:

filetypedf reilly intitleerl

or something similar.