I would like to thank the following people for their help:
l David Macklem at Sietec Open Systems for allowing me to take the time off to
work on the first edition of this book
l Everyone at Sams Publishing, for their efforts and encouragement
l Jim Gardner, for telling the people at Sams Publishing about me
I'd also like to thank all those friends of mine (you know who you are) who tolerated
my going stir-crazy as my deadlines approached.
About the Authors
David Till
David Till is a technical writer working in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a
master's degree in computer science from the University of Waterloo; programming
languages was his major field of study. He also has worked in compiler development and
on version-control software. He lists his hobbies as "writing, comedy, walking, duplicate
bridge, and fanatical support of the Toronto Blue Jays."
He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected] or [email protected], or on
the World Wide Web at http://www.interlog.com/~davet/.
Kamran Husain
Kamran Husain is a software consultant with experience in UNIX system programming.
He has dabbled in all sorts of software for real-time systems applications,
telecommunications, seismic data acquisition and navigation, X Window/Motif and
Microsoft Windows applications. He refuses to divulge any more of his qualifications.
Kamran offers consulting services and training classes through his company, MPS Inc., in
Houston, Texas. He is an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin.
You can reach Kamran through Sams Publishing or via e-mail at [email protected] or
[email protected].
Introduction
This book is designed to teach you the Perl programming language in just 21 days. When
you finish reading this book, you will have learned why Perl is growing rapidly in
popularity: It is powerful enough to perform many useful, sophisticated programming
tasks, yet it is easy to learn and use.