Pierce gives an updated introduction for Perl, describing the latest version 5.8. Though realistically, if you are new to Perl, you'd be doing fine even if the book didn't reach up to that version. Perl is a very stable, mature language, which is probably what you want.

If you already know another language, then many or all of the concepts in this book will be familiar. It just becomes a question of plowing through the chapters, to learn the Perl syntax.

In Pierce's presentation, he quickly takes you to what Perl calls a "hash". In Java, the corresponding class is a Hashtable. Regardless of terminology, the idea is a very useful one, and if you intend to be a proficient Perl programmer, you need to have this down pat. Earlier material in the text, like scalars and arrays, are pretty trivial to understand and use. The hash table is trickier, but Pierce does a good job in conveying its usage. He avoids the maths theory behind this, but points out that it gives you quick access to a value associated with a key, where this access is not proportional [ie. linear] to the number of keys in the table. He doesn't actually say it's logarithmic, which it is. [For the theory, Cf. Knuth "Art of Computer Programming" vol 3.]

Learn the hash. Experienced programmers [in any language] already know its value. In all of the book, it is the best glimpse into advanced algorithmic coding.
Rating: 4 / 5