Peter Scott

Peter Scott is one of those quiet perl people whom I think too few people are really aware of these days. His first book, Perl Debugged is one of the best tech books on the subject out there and now he has a new title in the pipeline, Perl Medic: Maintaining Inherited Code, set for a September publication date from Addison-Wesley. It isn't very often I get a manuscript that I have only praise for with few nits here and there, but both of Peter's books have been such exceptions.

Every person who has ever had the distinct displeasure of inheriting someone else's perl code will find something of value in this book, including those who wish to improve their own code for posterity and for uploading to CPAN. I learned a few things myself since I'm a pretty typical sysadmin hacker where writing tests for code is a luxury when things are written in a 'I needed it 2 hours ago' fashion. Peter has a lovely style of writing and imparts a lot of valuable information in a little under 300 pages which makes it enjoyable to read without being a tech version of War and Peace. :)

Sure, the book doesn't have a cute animal on the cover, but this book should be on every perl programmer's desktop. Make CPAN a better place and perl code around the world easier to maintain, get this book when it's released! I'll stop gushing now :)