Sebastopol, CA--Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture" (O'Reilly, US $39.95) is the third volume of the "Best of the Perl Journal." In its first five years of existence, "The Perl Journal" (TPJ) became the voice of the Perl community. Every serious Perl programmer subscribed to it, and every notable Perl guru jumped at the opportunity to write for it. TPJ explained critical Perl topics and demonstrated Perl's utility for fields as diverse as astronomy, biology, economics, AI, and games. Back issues were hoarded, or swapped like trading cards. No longer in print format, "The Perl Journal" remains a proud and timeless achievement of Perl during one of its most exciting periods of development.
Compiled and re-edited by the original editor and publisher of "The Perl Journal," Jon Orwant, "Games, Diversion, and Perl Culture" focuses on entertaining topics that make Perl users such fanatics about the language. The book includes all of the playful features TPJ offered over the years, including the Obfuscated Perl Contests, Perl Quiz shows, and poetry. Readers will also find articles on astronomy, bioinformatics, natural language processing, home automation, Braille, voting methods, and, of course, games.
Perl isn't just a programming language; it's also a community. Perl programmers aren't just programmers, but pride themselves on being musicians, scientists, poets, and linguists. As a result, "The Perl Journal" became a forum not only for sharing professional programming techniques, but also for inspiring readers to combine their programming and extracurricular interests. In this book, Perl programmers showcase their ingenuity by combining Perl with other endeavors.
Written by Perl gurus such as Larry Wall, Damian Conway, Sean Burke, and Lincoln Stein--just to name a few--the articles in this book show Perl at its quirkiest and its most inspired. This book shows how programmers have fun with Perl.
Of the three volumes of the "Best of the Perl Journal," this is arguably the most useless. It's also the most entertaining, and the one that best captures the spirit of Perl.
Additional Resources:
Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture: Best of the Perl Journal
Edited by John Orwant
ISBN 0-596-00312-9, 569 pages, $39.95 (US), $61.95 (CAN)
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