Perl Cookbook: Tips and Tricks for Perl Programmers

Tom Christiansen is an author and lecturer who's been intimately involved with Perl development on a daily basis since Larry first released it to the general public in 1987. After working for several years for TSR Hobbies (of Dungeons and Dragons fame), he set off for college where he spent a year in Spain and five in America pursuing a classical education in computer science, mathematics, music, linguistics, and Romance philology. He eventually escaped UW-Madison without a Ph.D., but with a B.A. in Spanish and in computer science, plus an M.S. in computer science specializing in operating systems design and in computational linguistics. Coauthor of of Programming Perl, Learning Perl, and Learning Perl on Win32 Systems from O'Reilly and Associates, Tom is also the major caretaker of Perl's free online documentation, developer of the www.perl.com Web site, coauthor of the Perl Frequently Asked Questions list, president of The Perl Journal, and frequent technical reviewer for O'Reilly and Associates. Tom served two terms on the USENIX Association Board of Directors. Tom lives high in idyllic Boulder, Colorado, where he gives public seminars on all aspects of Perl programming. When he can be coaxed out of the People's Republic of Boulder, Tom travels around the world giving public and private lectures and workshops on UNIX, Perl, and the Web on five continents and in three languages. He takes the summers off to pursue his hobbies of reading, backpacking, gardening, birding, gaming, music making, and recreational programming. Nathan Torkington has never climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He adamantly maintains that he was nowhere near the grassy knoll. He has never mustered superhuman strength to lift a burning trolley car to free a trapped child, and is yet to taste human flesh. Nat has never served as a mercenary in the Congo, line-danced, run away to join the circus, spent a year with the pygmies, finished the Death By Chocolate, or been miraculously saved when his cigarillo case stopped the bullet. Nat is not American, though he is learning the language. He is from Ti Point, New Zealand. People from Ti Point don't do these things. They grow up on fishing boats and say things like "She'll be right, mate." Nat did. He went to high school at Mahurangi College, university at Victoria University of Wellington, and moved to America when he met his wife, Jenine. His hobbies are bluegrass music and Perl. When he's not being a system administrator and family man, Nat teaches Perl and writes and edits for The Perl Journal.