CGI Programming on the World Wide Web

Author	Shishir Gundavaram	Entered	2000-12-28 00:19:09 by bcrowell
Edit	edit data record	Freedom	Copyrighted, doesn't cost money to read, but otherwise not free (disclaimer)
Subject	Q.A - Mathematics. Computer science (internet and networking)
Read	http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/cgi/ This link was reported to be OK by user Ben Crowell on 2004-11-15 22:28:40 You can't update this URL or report it OK or broken because you aren't logged in.
Review	You can't add a review of this book right now because you're not logged in.
Notify

I wish I'd known about this book
by Ben Crowell (crowell09 at stopspam.lightandmatter.com (change 09 to current year)) on 2001-01-12 16:52:49, review #96
http://www.lightandmatter.com

content
better than 80%

writing
typical

I wish I'd known about this book instead of having to learn about CGI programming from books that not only weren't free but weren't as good! The html-formatted version of the book is attractive and fast-loading. It's very complete. I thought I pretty much knew about CGI programming when I started reading it, but I rapidly found out there were a lot of really nifty things I'd never learned before.

The book is well organized and has a hyperlinked index. I might have found it a bit intimidating to learn CGI from it for the first time -- if you're in this position, the best approach would probably be to skim it very superficially the first time through, and just try to understand some of the simplest examples. The final chapter, on debugging and testing, is worth its weight in gold (well, it's an electronic book, but you get the idea), and I'd suggest reading it sooner rather than later.

After I wrote the original version of this review, Nathan Torkington from O'Reilly wrote to ask if I wanted to review a couple of O'Reilly Perl books. To avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, we agreed that I'd donate the review copies to my local library. Well, it turns out that one of the books he sent me was the second edition of this one -- it's not really out of print, as stated on the free first edition's web page. It's now titled CGI Programming With Perl, and it has Scott Guelich and Gunther Birznieks added as coauthors. So your choice is the free first edition or the not-free second edition. The free first edition is not available in printer-friendly format.

The second edition appears to be a massive rewrite. Lots of stuff is reorganized, and there are new chapters on creating bitamps on the fly, XML/middleware, guidelines for better applications, and efficiency and optimization. Some of this is likely to be of interest to everybody (e.g. efficiency), while other parts are not going to useful to most readers (bitmaps).

All in all, O'Reilly seems to be doing both what's right and what's good business. They're making books available on the web for free, but they know that will also be a form of free publicity. I expect to be checking this one out from the library frequently.

Information wants to be free, so make some free information.

The above review is copyrighted by its author, and is copylefted under the following license:
Open Publication License 1.0 without options A or B

This review has been revised. Earlier versions (viewing not yet implemented): -1
You cannot revise or reply to this post because you are not logged in.

The contents of this web page, except the parts contributed by members of The Assayer, are copyright (c) 2000 by Benjamin Crowell, and are copyleft licensed under the Open Publication License 1.0, without options A or B.