Learning Perl/TK

I used this book to learn the basics of Tk with Perl under Windows, and found it a fine, concise and clear reference. It got me quickly to the point of being able to develop useful graphical applications and gave what I felt to be a good grounding in important concepts and points. It does not address absolutely everything you will eventually need to know, but at least you will have a good grounding and probably find the subsequent learning curve a lot shallower as a result. Important coverage of the geometry managers (pack, place and grid) is well presented and good examples are given. Numerous other possibly trivial but extremely helpful things are here too: how to set the size and initial screen location of Tk-generated window (use the 'geometry' method), a good discussion of the colour-management issues of the various widgets - including how to find the file of colour definitions under various operating systems, and a clear explanation of the various ways to call subroutines (and pass parameters to them) using '-command'.Ms. Walsh's style is light and conversational, not at all 'difficult' and without the usual 'clever geek' frills (for example, I personally hate the use of 'foo' and 'bar' as variable and function names everywhere in computing books - it smacks of self-congratulatory cleverness, and more than a tad 'Oh, don't you get it?'). Fortunately that is absent here.Highly recommended if you are new to Tk under Perl, as it contains essential information and is well written and presented. Definitely worth the money.

The negative reviews almost scared me away from this book. It was just what I was looking for. Perhaps some of the negative reviewers are too advanced for this book. If that is the case, I have to ask why they purchased the book in the first place. If you want to learn Perl/Tk, this is an excellent book.

I've searched numerous places for a book on Perl/Tk. This book is without a doubt the BEST/only text I've found to date. If you don't know anything about Perl or GUIs, this is probably not a book for you. If you do have some experience with Perl and/or GUIs, this is the BEST/only choice for you. I (a person with some++ experience with Perl, and some experience with GUIs) found it VERY helpfull and informative.

I had programmed in perl and, briefly, tcl/tk but never perl/tk before buying this book. Nancy Walsh has made the transition seamless. Previous knowledge of tk is not even neccessary, only a basic understanding perl is required. Any budding perl programmer who has just finished an introductory perl book such as Learning Perl (also from O'Reilly) will breeze through Learning Perl/Tk. Ms. Walsh presents the Tk module in a clear, concise manner with ample examples littered throughout the text.This book will have you programming GUIs from within perl in no time at all...and you'll have FUN doing it too!