Curtis Ovid Poe - Beginning Perl

CONTENTS

Beginning Perl

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Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-118-01384-7

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ISBN: 978-1-118-23563-8 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-118-26051-7 (ebk)

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This book is dedicated to my wife, Lela, and our daughter, Lilly-Rose.

When I first had the opportunity to write this book, I was going to turn it down because I had a newborn daughter. Lela, however, insisted I write it. She knows how much I love writing and was adamant that she would be supportive while I wrote this book. She has been more than supportive: She has kept me going through a long, painful process. Lela, I love you. And beaucoup. You know what I mean.

CREDITS

Acquisitions Editor

Mary James

Project Editor

Maureen Spears

Technical Editor

chromatic

Production Editor

Christine Mugnolo

Copy Editor

San Dee Phillips

Editorial Manager

Mary Beth Wakefield

Freelancer Editorial Manager

Rosemarie Graham

Associate Director of Marketing

David Mayhew

Marketing Manager

Ashley Zurcher

Business Manager

Amy Knies

Production Manager

Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Neil Edde

Associate Publisher

Jim Minatel

Project Coordinator, Cover

Katie Crocker

Proofreader

James Saturnio, Word One New York

Indexer

Robert Swanson

Cover Designer

Ryan Sneed

Cover Image

RTimages / iStockPhoto

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CURTIS OVID POE started programming back in 1982 and has been programming Perl almost exclusively for 13 years. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Perl Foundation, speaks at conferences in many countries, but is most proud of being a husband and father.

ABOUT THE TECHNICAL EDITOR

CHROMATIC is a prolific writer and developer. He is most recently the author of Modern Perl, from Onyx Neon Press ( http://onyxneon.com/ ).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AS WITH MANY BOOKS, this one would not have been possible without many people helping me along the way. In particular, I want to thank Michael Rasmussen, my secret reviewer who, despite not being one of the official reviewers, nonetheless diligently reviewed every chapter and came back with many helpful comments that made this a far better book.

I also have to thank chromatic, my technical reviewer, who managed to annoy me time and time again by pointing out subtle issues that I should have caught but didnt. Hes a better programmer than I am, damn it.

Mary James and Maureen Spears, my primary contacts at Wiley, Wrox imprint, were a joy to work with and really helped keep my spirits up when this book seemed to drag on far longer than I thought. Their senses of humor and help through the editorial process were invaluable. I also have to thank San Dee, whoever the heck she is. Her name kept popping up through the editorial process and her work catching many issues in this book is much appreciated.

I also need to thank Adrian Howard, var Arnfjr Bjarmason, Alejandro Lopez, Andy Armstrong, Aristotle, Michael Schwern, Ricardo Signes, Sean T Lewis, and Simon Cozens for foolishly agreeing to review a book of this length.

Finally, Id like to thank the people working on the Open Feedback Publishing System at OReilly and for engendering a review community ( http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781118013847/ ) for this book and for all the helpful comments this site generated.

There are far too many to name and I apologize in advance for not mentioning all of you here.

On a personal note, I have to say that many times Ive read the comment and all errors are mine and Ive thought, But thats what reviewers are for, right? The reality is far different. When you write a book, the reviewers will catch a huge number of issues, as mine did, but they cant catch all of them. I now realize that in a work of this scope, I have to take responsibility for any flaws. The reviewers are generally not paid for this work and theyre not going to sit there, hours every night, months on end, worrying over every paragraph as I did. They caught most issues, but the remaining flaws in this work are mine and mine alone. Mea Culpa.