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Perl for Web Site Management

By John Callender
October 2001
Pages: 528
ISBN 10: 1-56592-647-1 | ISBN 13: 9781565926479
starstarstarstarstar (Average of 2 Customer Reviews)

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Book description

Learn to do everyday tasks on your web site using Perl--even if you have no programming background. Perl for Web Site Management shows how to write CGI scripts, incorporate search engines, convert multiple text files to HTML, monitor log files, and track visitors to your site. Whether you're a developer, a designer, or simply a dabbler on the Web, this is the hands-on introduction to Perl you've been waiting for.
Full Description

Checking links, batch editing HTML files, tracking users, and writing CGI scripts--these are the often tedious daily tasks that can be done much more easily with Perl, the scripting language that runs on almost all computing platforms. If you're more interested in streamlining your web activities than in learning a new programming language, Perl for Web Site Management is for you: it's not so much about learning Perl as it is about using Perl to do common web chores more efficiently. The secret is that, although becoming a Perl expert may be hard, most Perl scripts are relatively simple. Using Perl and other open source tools, you'll learn how to:
  • Incorporate a simple search engine
  • Write a simple CGI gateway
  • Convert multiple text files into HTML
  • Monitor log files
  • Track users as they navigate your site
Even if you don't have any programming background, this book will get you quickly past Perl's seemingly forbidding barrier of chops and chomps, execs and elsifs. You'll be able to put an end to using clunky tools, editing files tediously by hand, or relying on programmers and system administrators to do "the hard stuff" for you. Sure, you might learn a little bit about programming as well, and perhaps something about the role of open source tools on the Web. But the purpose of Perl for Web Site Management isn't to educate you--it's to empower you. Whether you're a developer, a designer, or simply a dabbler on the Web, this book is the plain-English, hands-on introduction to Perl you've been waiting for.

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Perl for Web Site Management Review,  May 03 2002
Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
Submitted by Ed Chapin   [Respond | View]

Great book for very practical uses of perl for maintaning "directory sites". I put Chapter 5 to use within an hour of reading it and variations of this concept are now on five sites I maintain.

Author is careful to introduce concepts carefully, so that a waterfall of information is manageable. I pick up something almost every week by looking at a chapter again with a different perspective, or problem to solve.

I have lots of PERL books, but this is the first one that was useful within ten minutes of starting it, and still continues to be useful today.


Perl for Web Site Management Review,  November 22 2001
Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
Submitted by Kelly   [Respond | View]

This "review" is a bit premature as I'm just getting started with this book, but I already love it. It addresses exactly what I was looking for: Some practical Perl/CGI programming for non-programmers (or programmer wannabes in my case).

Callender walks through just what is going on (e.g. Just what the heck is a "shell" anyway?) when building Perl scripts as well as all that peripheral stuff, such as where to find find a Telnet client that supports SSH. Of course, as the title would lead you to believe all the projects in the chapters are actually useful and directly applicable to web site management/design.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of this book.

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Media reviews
"This reviewer has been working with Perl for a while and had a number of 'aha' moments while reading...Callender has chosen a core set of web management tasks. In addition to some basic Perl concepts and a dip into regular expressions he covers form-to-email gateway, generating HTML, parsing web access logs and generating reports from access information, link checking, and date arithmetic, adding pages via CGI script, and creating a CGI guestbook. For the adventurous, Callender includes chapters on integrating external freeware utilities such as search tools and database systems. He also clearly covers the use and writing of Perl modules. Callender ties the book together by carrying examples across chapters. 'Perl for Web Site Management' is highly recommended for inclusion in your Perl library."
--Mack Lundy, Williamsburg Macromedia User Group , April 20, 2003
http://fsweb.wm.edu/wmmug/reviews/output.cfm?id=136

"Aimed at giving would-be Webmasters a full arsenal to help manage Web sites...If you are new to Perl, but want to know how to use Perl to manage your Web site, then this book is your best bet for hitting the ground running with Perl."
--Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier, UnixReview, Nov 5, 2002

"A beginner-friendly, hands-on introduction to Perl, framed as an extended tutorial. His target audience is readers who, like himself, are 'accidental programmers,' without the training or inclination to become full-time professional programmers but with a willingness to learn whatever they need to know to solve their immediate problems. Managing a Web site turns out to be a splendid example of a domain where accidental programmers abound, and where--with Callender's able assistance--they can accomplish worthwhile feats in Perl. Yet readers with intermediate skills will find this collection interesting, as well: the text moves fairly quickly and its lucid plain-English explanations cover a surprising breadth of territory for an introductory work...This book fills an important niche between the basic introductions to Perl, like O'Reilly's 'Learning Perl' ('the llama book'), and the more advanced reference books, like O'Reilly's 'Perl Cookbook.' Task-focused beginners may find it an ideal first book, if they are more interested in accomplishing the kinds of tasks that Callender addresses than in learning Perl from the more standard language-centric approach. Intermediate Perl programmers, especially those who fit the 'accidental programmer' profile, are likely to find this book tremendously useful as well."
--Lydia Levins, Technology Electronic Reviews, Vol 9, No. 5

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