

Learning Perl 6th Edition available - dharmatech
http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920018452

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nnutter
Why can't I upgrade my digital edition? Not that books are that expensive but
if the original is work $20 why is the same thing with a few minor changes
still $20?

~~~
naner
I frequently run into this and wish I could buy a diff of the editions for a
reduced price.

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hendrik-xdest
Great that they removed the preface from the example chapters. Now, you can't
find out what has changed in this edition. I saw a reference to StackOverflow
in the introduction that I guess wasn't there in the previous version. But
apart from that I have no clue if I should get it ...

~~~
gnufs
From the Preface:

P.6. Changes from the Previous Edition

The text is updated for the latest version, Perl 5.14, and some of the code
only works with that version. We note in the text when we are talking about a
Perl 5.14 feature, and we mark those code sections with a special use
statement that ensures you’re using the right version:

    
    
      use 5.014; # this script requires Perl 5.14 or greater
    

If you don’t see that use 5.014 in a code example (or a similar statement with
a different version), it should work all the way back to Perl 5.8. To see
which version of Perl you have, try the -v command-line switch:

    
    
      $ perl -v
    

Here’s some of the new features from Perl 5.14 that we cover, and where
appropriate, we still show you the old ways of doing the same thing:

* We include Unicode examples and features where appropriate. If you haven’t started playing with Unicode, we include a primer in Appendix C. You have to bite the bullet sometime, so it might as well be now. You’ll see Unicode throughout the book, most notably in the chapters on Scalars (Chapter 2), Input/Output (Chapter 5), and Sorting (Chapter 14).

* There is more information in the regular expression chapters, covering the new features from Perl 5.14 to deal with Unicode case-folding. The regular expression operators have new /a, /u, and /l switches. We now cover matching by Unicode properties with the \p{} and \P{} regular expression features.

* Perl 5.14 adds a nondestructive substitution operator (Chapter 9), which turns out to be really handy.

* Smart matching and given-when has mutated a bit since their introduction in Perl 5.10, so we update Chapter 15 to cover the new rules.

* We updated and expanded Perl Modules (Chapter 11) to include the latest news, including the zero-conf cpanm tool. We add some more module examples as well.

* Some of the items previously in Appendix B, the advanced-but-not-demonstrated features, move into the main text. Notably, that includes the fat arrow => moving into Hashes (Chapter 6) and splice moving into Lists and Arrays (Chapter 3).

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heyrhett
... Perl 6... available!!!!!!

~~~
riffraff
been for a while, <http://rakudo.org/>

~~~
michaelcampbell
While true, I think that until a link for something downloadable at
<http://www.perl.org/get.html> appears, it's not going to be considered "real"
by many. I know of at least 2 large companies that restrict its use for
precisely that reason.

~~~
chromatic
If Perl had a single-minded organization behind it, changing that page would
be simpler. Alas, volunteers do (and don't do) what volunteers want to do (or
don't want to do).

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zackattack
<3 I owe so much to Learning Perl

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KevinMS
I got a little excited when I though "Lama book for perl 6!", then I was a
more than a little disappointed.

How is this any different than the previous 5 editions? And if not, why should
anybody care there is a new version? And how is this hacker newsworthy?

~~~
SwellJoe
One could argue that Perl 5 has gotten interesting again lately, and that the
versions since the last edition are responsible for some of that. Smart match,
given/when, a number of refinements that can reduce ambiguity, etc.

And, of course _Learning Perl_ is often a new Perl programmer's first
experience with the language...it's good for them to learn current best
practices from day one.

~~~
KevinMS
Perl 5 may have gotten more interesting lately, but is any of this is a
beginners book?

The llama book is ubiquitous, you can find it anywhere, including used copies
for a few bucks, second hand book stores, the cubicle next to yours, etc, and
from what I've seen its been unchanged. What in this new version justifies all
this fanfare?

~~~
SwellJoe
I'd, personally, prefer to see a new camel. There have been like three llamas
since the last new camel. But, I guess Larry's been sort of busy lately.

~~~
telemachos
As Draegtun says, the (very welcome) Camel update is coming this October.

<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596004927>

