Three Perl books from O'Reilly

[afuna]

I am excited. My mom is going to the US to visit my grandmother and see some of her sisters, and this means that I can order technical books and have her take them home. I thought about it a bit, and I really want these three books:

* Programming Perl
* Mastering Perl
* Perl Best Practices

I would have been happy with one, but O'Reilly has a promo where you can buy two and get one free, and my resolve cracked (THREE IS MY HAPPY NUMBER). I also briefly considered switching one out to get the Perl Cookbook but the cookbook is of the more expensive variety, and also, I could not decide which of the first three I could bear to switch out. denny assures me that the knowledge I have absorbed of Perl from poking around means that I can skip Learning Perl, which is good -- one less book to need to buy. I am sweating at the thought of the price, as it is. It's... urgh. It's a lot of money.

But guys, guys, I just bought books. Eeeeh. I hit the buy button and everything and they're now on their way!

(I've been tempted to buy these books before, and have them shipped to my country, but the price of world-wide shipping for three books is $39.48, almost as much as another book! "Almost", here, being a difference of 50 cents)

Anyway, anyway, I'm just so happy and excited. It's the first time that I've tried to order a book from overseas. I have a few technical books which I scavenged from a sale (also my textbooks that I bought for my university courses *grin* I should go look at the Unix Network Programming one again, for kicks), but on the whole I have too few books related to my field. This is the first time I'm buying a technical book that I actively hunted for/want/need, instead of just stumbled upon.

My face right now: ^_________^

Comments

[omgaeula]

That must feel fantastic! I can imagine the smile on your face now, hee. Congratulations on the purchases.

[murklins]

Hey hey, I was trying to decide how to log my novel reading (Goodreads, Librarything, etc.) and I came across Better World Books where they claim to be super awesome and also have $3.95 worldwide carbon-neutral shipping. I haven't tried it, but I thought of you in your sad library-less world.

[afuna]

I love you <3 I mean I love you already, but NOW I LOVE YOU LOTS.

[kareila]

Back when I was working, my employer paid for me to go to OSCON, and I actually won a copy of the Perl Cookbook. It's still the go-to book for me to quickly look up how to do common tasks.

I hadn't seen "Perl Best Practices" but Damian Conway is brilliant and engaging, so I'm sure it's a great book. The book that helped me really get a "feel" for Perl when I was first learning was "Effective Perl Programming" by Hall & Schwartz, and I expect it covers the same ground. There are links to sample chapters in the sidebar of Hall's blog (http://effectiveperl.blogspot.com/).

My local bookstore will occasionally put O'Reilly books on half-off clearance. If you like, I can keep my eye out for discounted Perl books to send your way.

[afuna]

OMG. That is an amazing offer. How would I get money to you? Do you have a PayPal account? (And do you have any idea how much the shipping costs would be? *G*)

Also I'm eyeing "Effective Perl Programming" now, too, thanks for the rec!

[kareila]

Yeah, I have Paypal. I've shipped CDs overseas before, but not books, so I don't know exactly, but I can have the postage checked beforehand and you can decide if it's worth it to you. :)

[afuna]

<3333

If it would not be a bother, yes, please <3333

[kareila]

I'll check over there later this week and see what they have right now. :)

[damned_colonial]

FYI... Perl Best Practices is AWESOME.

The Cookbook, IMHO, is mostly duplicated in the Perl FAQ. I think you picked the right ones.

[afuna]

I am *so excited* about this. I keep falling into fits of dreaminess. *laughs*

[pauamma]

*grin* Yay books!

[afuna]

Yes *squeaks happily*

[anchan218.livejournal.com]

Wow, sweet deal. I have a copy of Programming Perl at work and that book is quite nice. :) Haven't seen the other 2 books, though.

[afuna]

OMG. I'm so excited ^___^

(And hearing that you liked the book makes me that much more excited *laughs*)

[keilexandra]

And I was just complaining yesterday about all the books I had to buy for school, off Amazon. I'm very lucky to get free shipping.

[afuna]

It is not all that bad; we usually get low-priced edition textbooks here, so we get some stuff cheaper ( Low-priced == non-glossy paper, non-colored ink, etc). From what I know, publishers won't sell the low-priced editions to North America and Europe, too.

But that's only for locally available textbooks :( For anything that local stores don't stock, I'd need to send overseas for, and ick.

( murklins found me a site which has shipping at only $4, though! I am so very very excited about this, eeeeh :D)