Perl for the Web

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 416 pages
• Published by: New Riders Press
• Edition: 1st Edition August 8, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0735711143
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0735711143
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1.4 pounds

Book Description
If raw speed were the only concern, Web performance problems could be solved simply by upgrading hardware or adding additional servers. Unfortunately, real-world Web sites, which are ever more central to many business practices, are also limited by budgets, tight timelines, and limited resources. Still, these systems need to be fast. Thus, new techniques are needed to add enterprise-class performance to Web applications on a shoestring budget. "Perl for the Web" provides tools and strategies to improve the performance of existing Web applications in Perl with case studies and real-world examples. It also provides principles and ideas that help Web programmers create an extensible framework for future growth. Special attention is given to upcoming technologies, including integration, the wireless Web, and XML-based automation, with an eye toward using existing tools to address the challenges of tomorrow's applications.

With "Perl for the Web," you will learn how to:

-Evaluate the performance of existing Web sites

-Identify performance bottlenecks quickly

-Improve the performance of dynamic sites with Perl

-Accelerate database-backed Web sites

-Test performance improvements consistently

-Identify problem areas in Web application development

-Implement reusable templates for faster site development

-Manage and publish XML-based content on the Web

-Implement B2B solutions with Perl and XML

-Develop next-generation Web services using XML and SOAP

Publisher Description
Chris Radcliff is a Voice That Matters and that's why he's written this incredible book for New Riders Publishing. In partnering with Chris, we hope to bring Perl readers something new that they can't find anywhere else. Chris brings you tips and tricks from years of experience that only time can teach. If you need to utlilize Perl on the web, this book is for you.

Because we care about making good books, I'd like to hear what you think of Chris' book. Please email me at nrfeedback@newriders.com with your comments.
~Stephanie Wall, Executive Editor

Reader Reviews
From the title, I initially expected a collection of utilities, tips, and CGI scripts. But this is more of an overview than a cookbook. It lays out the current state of the technology necessary for developing responsive web applications in a timely manner with Perl. It does include explanatory and example source code, but the examples are provided more to illustrate problems and solutions than to be used as ingredients in applications. Actually running the examples will require the ability to set up your own application environments (and probably some code tweaking). The technologies Chris Radcliffe primarily advocates in this book are Perl itself, persistence as a method of improving site performance, template processing, and the vast sets of libraries that Perl makes available. I found this book to provide a broad and comprehensive road map for using Perl on the Web, for those with limited time to devote to Perl (such as myself). (For a cookbook, I've picked up Paul DuBois's MySQL and Perl for the Web, also published by New Riders. It looks good so far.) The first six chapters introduce the big problems in web application development from a variety of aspects. (I personally wanted more illustrative examples here.) If you are not familiar with issues affecting server load, such as the time required to establish a connection from scratch every time in the standard CGI model, these chapters should provide plenty of material to think about. If you are under the impression that faster processors and faster languages will solve all your problems, you should definitely read these chapters. The next three chapters outline techniques and resources available for building web apps with Perl. The remainder of the book introduces specific tools -- including tools at the leading edge, for XML, wireless, and B2B. The last chapter describes plans for the next version of Perl. (Check the table of contents on line to see which libraries and other tools are covered.) Program examples in these chapters give a good flavor of what can be expected with the tools. I am something of fan of Perl for text processing for one-byte character sets (and two-byte character sets when there isn't much need for classifying the two-byte characters -- looking forward to Perl 6 here), but my work has taken me away from open source and Perl for a while. Reading this book, I've been able to catch up quite a bit on what I've been missing out on in the Perl world. I think four is an honest rating, by the way. It has some rough spots, but the material is _very_ timely. I would like to see a second edition in a couple of years, with more specifics, more examples, and otherwise adjusted to match what should be a more stable technology then.