Perl Debugged

by Peter J. Scott and Ed Wright

Book Overview

"Jocelyn Brooke is a great writer. . . . If you care enough for literature, seek out The Scapegoat ."--Elizabeth Bowen "Brooke marked out his magical, personal kingdom, different from any other... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201700549
• ISBN13: 9780201700541
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Perl Debugged book review

This was a surprise gem for me. I had been looking at several Perl books that covered debugging. I already have a couple of good references for the Perl debugger; what I wanted was a book that was more about "how" to debug...strategies, techniques, etc. The other books on debugging Perl was I looked at appeared to be more comprehensive but I didn't want to have to read any really long books. I decided to try this one which seemed to cover the topics I was looking for and was a tractable book in terms of length. I was really surprised at just how superb this book is. It did cover the topics I thought and hoped it would; but the writing style was surprising and terrific for me.

Valid and useful points for the critical operation of debugging Perl programs

I am what the authors occasionally describe as a diehard C/C++/Java programmer and have taught this style of language for over 20 years. My experience with Perl is enough to be able to program at the reasonable level and I taught a course in programming with Perl several years ago. To the programmer accustomed to the syntax of C-like languages, the structure and idioms of Perl can be difficult to understand. Using it well is similar to learning a second spoken language, where phrases that are superficially imprecise, such as "take a hike", can be difficult to translate. Once you learn the language, the next and most significant step is to learn to test the code so that errors are reduced and hopefully eliminated. This is the step where knowledge of the idioms is most critical, because before you can successfully debug, you must understand. That is the level at which this book is written, if you pick it up and are not familiar with Perl, then it will do you little to no good. However, if you do know the language well enough to program in it, then the tactics described here will be very helpful in your goal of creating a functional and error-free Perl program. While that statement is more applicable to the programmers that have come to Perl from other languages, even veterans of the Perl programming wars will find points of value.

Great Perl Tips Presented With Humor

This book is a must for perl programmers. Throughout the book, the authors develop 46 "Perls of Wisdom". These guidelines will help you write code with fewer bugs and help you fix bugs when they do come up - and they will! I tend to enjoy software books with a little humor to them, and this one fits the bill. Here are the highlights from the book:Ch. 1-Gives some background on the perl language and good tips on accessing the documentation for various parts of perl on various platforms.Ch. 2-Kind of a touchy/feely chapter; however, there is wisdom in it. It helps you understand how your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors affect your code. Don't skip it.Ch. 3-This chapter gives you some good advice on how to avoid bugs in your program. One of these is documentation. I've found that documenting something makes you think about things you otherwise might not have.Ch. 4-Gives some common sources of bugs in perl including syntax, precedence, and regular expressions.Ch. 5-How to get formatted printouts of variables in your using Data::Dumper. This is a step up from print statements, and is easy to use.Ch. 6-Includes good information on testing your code and the perl modules available to assit you in test harnesses and coverage tests.Ch. 7-This is the gem of the book. It is a step by step guide to using the perl debugger. If reading man pages makes your head hurt, you will find this tutorial much more user friendly.Ch. 8-An excellent chapter on interpreting the syntax error reports that perl spits out.Ch. 9-The runtime exception counterpart to the previous chapter. It contains a discussion of perl exception handling vs. that of java or c++.Ch. 10-This chapter deals with the tough topic of code that compiles and runs, but gives the wrong answer. It gives techinques for seeing how perl interpreted your code.Ch. 11-This chapter gives you advice for improving performance using the Benchmark module.Ch. 12-A nice comparison to other languages. If you are fluent in another programming language, it is helpful to know how the it compares to perl.The examples in this book are what make it the most useful. They show you how to use various perl modules to make your code better. Being new to the language, I wasn't even aware that some of these modules existed. Unless you are a perl master already, you should find plenty of useful information in Perl Debugged.

Super advice for Perl programmers, and others

I'm tremendously pleased with Perl Debugged. It's half a book about Perl debugging, and half a book with more general advice, all pleasantly blended together. Peter and Ed take you on an unrivaled tour of the ups and downs of Perl debugging. It's sort of like Effective Perl Programming's "Debugging" chapter except hugely and brilliantly expanded. It's comprehensive and imaginative without being pedantic. It covers the Perl debugger (of course), it covers the different types of errors you'll encounter in Perl programs, it covers debugging strategies, and (very important) it covers the always-icky topic of debugging CGI programs. And some other topics ....Even experienced Perl programmers will enjoy reading this book. You may think you've seen it all but I guarantee you that you haven't seen all of the examples of weirdness featured herein. It reminds me of Kon and Bal's debugging "brainteasers" in Apple's now defunct Develop magazine.I *highly* recommend Perl Debugged to anyone at the beginning or intermediate stage in Perl programming, particularly to programmers who have less than 2-4 years of debugging experience in general. An experienced programmer, on the other hand, will want to buy a copy (copies?) to browse and then hand to his junior co-worker(s) with stern instructions to "read first, code later." (Reminds me of the time I bought Bugs in Writing.)Apparently the authors have a way with words. The prose is unusually good--not just by the standards of technical books--colorful, extremely clear, and enjoyable to read. (The illustrations by Peter's sister-in-law are great.) About the only thing that "bugs" me is the authors' use of "semantical" in preference to "semantic."

great meta-book on perl

Fun book, of 3 perl metabooks (others Hall/Schwartz Efficient Perl (everybody shd read) and Brown's Debugging Perl (I haven't read much) ). There's "35 best hackers", good bibliographies/TOC index could be more detailed) and the 1st 100 pages had me thinking authors were watching my perl screwups over my shoulder. One wish list item: more info on vim, gnu/xemacs (getting syntax coloring/tabbing right on NT, compiling .els)$1MM Question: can these books keep perl growing? Python,ruby don't seem to need these debugging/dev practices books.Another question: can any books on perl/python stay up to date? Since this came out: komodo (you are trying to get your boss to pay $250 subscription, aren't you?), Visual perl/python, python DBI, 3 or 4 more Oreillys, etc. etc.