Review by Billy Barron

"Web Client Programming with Perl" by Wong (O'Reilly, ISBN 1-56592-214-X) is definitely a unique book. It is the only book I know of that teaches you how to write your own Perl scripts to yank information from web pages automatically. This can be extremely useful for automation and increasing productivity.

The book pretty much assumes you know Perl, but only know how to use the web. It covers the HTTP protocol and sockets so you don't need to know that going in. It even covers writing a user interface for your Perl programs with TK. My only problem with this book is that I wish it had even more example programs than it does. The ones it has do cover the basics though.

In conclusion, if you need to write programs that use the Web from a client perspective, then you need this book. You will find it helpful.