A.P. Lawrence

Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web

Order (or just read more about) PERL and CGI for the World Wide Web- Elizabeth Castro

Before I start complaining, let me first say that this thin and inexpensive volume is an excellent introduction to Perl CGI programming and I would definitely recommend it to anyone getting started with that. Anyone who gets serious will need and want more, but this is a very good starting point.

However: I don't see the point of turning code examples into screen shots, and the type in the screen shots is impossible for anyone over 40 to read comfortably. Those are my only gripes.

Elizabeth explains concepts clearly and concisely, and she covers just about everything- even cookies, which many thicker volumes either ignore or make so confusing that the neophyte would give up. Naturally, forms are covered completely. The only real omission here is server related topics like mod-perl and SSI, but that's understandable.

The focus of this also assumes Unix, which always makes me much happier than the moronic tomes which pretend that NT webservers are the norm.