Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 16:41:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Lisa Mann <lisam@oreilly.com>
To: cool@eklektix.com
Subject: Perl in a Nutshell Released

For immediate release
January 7, 1999
For more information, a review copy, author 
interview or cover graphics, contact:
Lisa Mann
(707) 829-0515 ext. 230  lisam@oreilly.com


"Perl in a Nutshell" is released at last!

Sebastopol, CA--The wait is over. "Perl in a Nutshell" has arrived!

As Larry Wall, the legendary creator of Perl ("Pathologically Eclectic
Rubbish Lister") says "In a nutshell, Perl is designed to make the easy
jobs easy, without making the hard jobs impossible."  Interestingly,
O'Reilly & Associates' well-regarded "In a Nutshell" book series is
designed in much the same way. "Our readers don't want fluff; they
don't want hand holding. They want useful, non-obvious information, and
they want it quickly." says Tim O'Reilly, "The Nutshell books provide
information the reader didn't even expect to find. This 'leap of
usefulness' is a crucial element in a Nutshell book."  So it was only a
matter of time before O'Reilly combined their Perl expertise and their
best- selling format into one concise, efficient Perl referencethe just
released and eagerly anticipated "Perl in a Nutshell".

"Perl in a Nutshell" gathers together a wealth of information about
Perl itself and its application to CGI scripts, network programming,
database interaction, and graphical user interfaces. And it gives
detailed coverage for those using Perl within a Win32 environment.
"Perl in a Nutshell" also covers things like:  built-in functions and
standard modules; DBI, the database-independent API for Perl; sockets
programming; Perl/tk; modules for interfacing with Win32 systems; LWP
in a nutshell, if it is in the Perl programmer's universe, you'll
probably find it in this book.

"Eight years ago we published a book called "Programming Perl" about a
small, little-known scripting language. Little did we know that Perl
would grow into a mature object-oriented programming language, and
that publically-available modules would help make Perl an indispensible
tool for Web and database development" explains Linda Mui, O'Reilly's
Perl editor, "As the Perl language blossomed, so did our line of books
about Perl: we now publish 7 books about Perl. While no one book can
cover all of Perl anymore, "Perl in a Nutshell" now acts as a central
reference for the most useful and practical information about Perl,
bringing into a single volume not only the particulars of using the
language itself, but also its most popular and essential modules."


Note about the cover: 
"Programming Perl" by Larry Wall, Randal Schwartz, and Tom
Christiansen is often credited with some of Perl's current popularity.
"Programming Perl" is often affectionately referred to as "the Camel
book"  because of the camel on the cover, and the camel has become an
unofficial mascot of the Perl language. "Perl in a Nutshell" also
sports a camel on the cover (a head vs. a complete camel). "Programming
Perl" and "Perl in a Nutshell" are both terrific books and are quite
likely to sit side-by-side on the bookshelf of anyone working with (or
even dabbling in) Perl , but please don't confuse the two. "Programming
Perl" is the bible of Perl programming--providing an extensive overview
and explanation of the language and its features and syntax. "Perl in a
Nutshell" is an essential desktop quick reference. Call it Perl
Nutshell; call it Camel in a Nutshell; call it Nutty Camel, please,
just don't call it "the Camel book."

Perl in a Nutshell
by Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
January 1999 (US)
ISBN: 1-56592-286-7, 654 pages, $24.95 (US)
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938

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