I have to say I didn’t get much out of it. Of the 101 hacks, maybe a dozen brought things to my attention that I didn’t know before, and then in most cases it was simply because the hack mentioned a Perl module I may find useful someday. Basically, for me it was like spending 20 quid on a special-edition Perl advent calendar – not worth the money. That’s not to say it’s a bad book, just that I’ve been around the Perl block a lot of times. (Holy cow, I just realised I’ve been doing Perl for 8 years.) I’ve seen most there is to see.
You can reel off a dozen cool CPAN modules off the cuff, some of which you don’t actively use, but might – and another dozen if you have a few minutes to think about it? There’s not much stuff people can do in Perl without delving into the perl guts where you’d wonder “how’d they do that”? Then you’ll likely still find things in this book you didn’t know or think of – but overall it will probably be only marginally useful.
It would be a wonderful book for someone who has progressed past the basic novice stage in Perl, ready to spread her wings and probe the more advanced concepts and obscure corners of the language. It would also be a treasure trove for someone who doesn’t participate much in the online community and therefore isn’t privy to the latest thinking on best-practices Perl programming. If you can see yourself in those descriptions, you will most likely find enough in this book to make it worth your money – if not more than.
