[Mastering-perl] New Chapters for Mastering Perl

[brian d foy]

On 4/10/06, Farah, Katherine <katherine.farah at lmco.com> wrote:
> How about a chapter on architecting and refactoring medium and large
> scale perl applications?

I was thinking about that, but I don't know if I can do it justice in
20 or so pages. Refactoring Perl isn't much more different from
refactoring any other language.

That meta-issue, where the issue really has nothing to do with Perl,
is problem for advanced books like this. I and my editors have been
talking about how to cover things that really aren't inherently Perl.
The idea of "Mastering Perl" is really about half mastering general
programming skills.

So, which programming skills should I cover? The main constraint is
page count, and after that time to market. I could take two years and
produce a thick book that costs a lot, or I could take a shorter time
and produce a thinner book that costs less.  Which one to choose? It's
not apparent that one will sell more poorly. People seem to like thick
books like the Camel and the Ram, but I don't think I'm doing my job
if I can't explain things with a thin book. The idea of mastery, in
general, is that people need a kicck in the right direction.

The right direction, in this case, is Martin Fowler's "Refactoring".
It's an okay book. It's not great, but it's good ehough, and probably
better than I could do (especially in a single chapter).  It doesn't
use Perl, but then, you only need to be able to read small Java
snippets, not really understand Java or even be able to get a Java
program to work.

As I say in the introduction of Mastering Perl, at some point the
apprentice needs to listen to other people besides their mentor.

That's not to say that we can't have a separate book on Refactoring
Perl, or Enterprise Perl, or whatever. It's just not going to be
Mastering Perl. If anyone wants to write such a book, please let me
know. I'm working with a new publisher to get some fresh Perl titles
out there. :)

--
brian d foy <brian.d.foy at gmail.com>
http://www.pair.com/~comdog/