Re: Perl texts for college class?

>>>>> "WRW" == William R Ward <[email protected]> writes:

  WRW> That's fine, but students in a night school class cannot generally
  WRW> afford to buy a half dozen books at $30-50 each.  I need *one* book
  WRW> that has some of all of the above, and is written as a *textbook* not
  WRW> as a reference or teach-yourself book.

that is a valid point. so teach richer students! :-)

lanaguages like perl which are not borne of ivory towers but the
real world tend to get reference and how to books and not
textbooks. lisp has textbooks galore. you might still want to have a
decent set of perl books for use as a lending library for your
students. they can then buy which ones they like if they want more depth
in those areas. having a preselected set of decent books will keep them
out of the dummies section of amazon. 

and orwant's interactive course sounds like more of what you want. and
so does perl, the programmer's companion. you should get a set of books
for yourself to see which fits you course the best. it may be 2 books
like the nutshell as a reference and orwant's as a main text. also
printing the perl docs (not all of them, but selected man pages) would
be a good reference and probably cheaper than books if your school has a
printing office. also no copyright issues unlike xeroxing a book.

you always need something as a full language reference so make sure the
are taught how to use the perl docs and FAQ's. if they learn how to
search and find stuff there, half their problems will be solved.

uri

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