Comments on: Time for second edition Perl Best Practices?

By: Vincent Veselosky

Vincent Veselosky — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:20:28 +0000

+1: So much has changed with the addition of Moose to the mix, and it's handy to have a single resource to point to.

Hasn't sold well? Damn, everybody I know has a copy, and it's pretty much been a permanent member of my Safari Bookshelf since it came out. *Sigh*.

By: david

david — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:19:08 +0000

Randal, are slides or video of the talk online somewhere?

By: Randal L. Schwartz

Randal L. Schwartz — Sat, 23 May 2009 06:35:14 +0000

I have a talk called "Perl Second-Best Practices" where I try to frame each of Damian's 255 "Best" practices in a practical light.

By: Rassie’s Doghouse » PBP 2nd ed.? Just open it up!

Rassie’s Doghouse » PBP 2nd ed.? Just open it up! — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:06:15 +0000

[...] are some long-overdue calls out there calling for the second edition of “Perl Best Practices”. And more often than [...]

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:57:36 +0000

Maybe something could be created with a CC license and then we as a community can take ownership of it and as practices change so canthe guide? Just a thought...

By: Geber22

Geber22 — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:19:42 +0000

"use to cut through the TIMTOWTDI excuse for people’s bad code"

Exactly, these same people would make a mess, no matter what language they coded in, I've seen it first hand.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:33:54 +0000

I love PerlBP, it completely changed the way I write Perl. TIMTOWTDI is such a pervasive idea in the Perl world, and it certainly has its merits. But to a new Perl programmer it can be extremely intimidating. PerlBP answers a huge number of questions for the new coder and gives them a nice framework to use to solve problems.

I would love to see another version of the book. Or even simply "More" best practices as an additional, if shorter, set of recommendations.

By: brian d foy

brian d foy — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:30:44 +0000

It's not so much the publisher not listening as an author not updating. If Damian doesn't make the update and push for it, it's probably not going to happen. Also, Perl Best Practices hasn't had strong sales, which makes the motivation even less.

By: Zbigniew Lukasiak

Zbigniew Lukasiak — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:10:54 +0000

I think you touched an important point here. From my experience I can say that programmers are relatively easy to convince about good programming techniques, they do like to write good code, but among managers the attitude is much more resistant. You are right that a book, especially published by O'Reilly, is a chance to percolate our knowledge to the management level.

By: Kiffin

Kiffin — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:41:59 +0000

Some Perl books have copyrights even older and remain to this day classics even if though never updated. Perl Best Practices is one of those classics and I see no really urgent reasons to bring out a newer addition. Some of the chapters have been somewhat controversial from the very beginning, and that will not change. My opinion is that the book can probably last at least a couple more years as is.