Programming Perl, ISBN 0-596-00027-8, best known as the Camel Book among programmers, is a book and ebook about writing programs using the Perl programming language, revised as several editions (1991-2009) to reflect major language changes since Perl version 4. Editions have been co-written by the creator of Perl, Larry Wall, along with Randal L. Schwartz, then Tom Christiansen and then Jon Orwant. Published by O'Reilly, the book is considered the canonical reference work for Perl programmers. With over a thousand pages, the various editions contain complete descriptions of each Perl language version and its interpreter. Examples range from trivial code snippets to the highly complex expressions for which Perl is notorious. The camel book editions are also noted for being written in an approachable and humorous style.
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The first edition (ISBN 9780937175644), which would eventually gain the nickname "the pink camel" due to its pink spine, was originally published in January 1991 and covered version 4 of the Perl language. It was the work of two authors: Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz. By the time the second edition of the book was published, in August 1996, Perl had changed significantly: it now included references, objects, packages and other modern programming constructs. In response to these changes, the two original authors, joined by Tom Christiansen, rewrote the book from scratch. In July 2000, the third and (as of 2009[update]) most recent edition of Programming Perl was published. This version was again rewritten, this time by Wall, Christiansen and Jon Orwant, and covered the Perl 5.6 language.
Programming Perl has also been made available electronically by O'Reilly, both through its inclusion in various editions of The Perl CD Bookshelf and through the "Safari" service (a subscription-based website containing technical ebooks). The publisher offers online a free sample of Chapter Eighteen [1] as well as the complete set of code examples in the book [2].