At the same time I ordered Practical PostgreSQL, I ordered this book at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore. Fortunately, this one didn't disappoint me. This book lived up to all the hype I'd heard, and had begun to anticipate, two months before it was available.

The index and table of contents are excellent (a must for any good reference book). The index seems very thorough and takes up about 30 pages. The table of contents, and thus the book, is laid out in a manner that makes it easy to find topics/subtopics of interest.

There is a 60-page appendix table "Options and Default Values for Each Widget" which I've already placed a stickem on for quick reference. The appendix would have been even more invaluable if each widget (and possibly some lesser used/known attributes) had a page number reference so one doesn't have to find an entry there, and then have to look it up a second time in the index to find more details.

There is also another appendix that contains complete program listings for fun/useful programs like progress bars, MP3 player, RPN calculator, etc. They are useful as extensive examples of Perl/Tk code, if nothing else. The only downside is that there are no electronic copies (CD or web links) to these programs and some are rather lengthy.

Although I consider myself a rank beginner with Perl/Tk, I believe that it will also serve as an invaluable reference to advanced users of Perl/Tk and have heard from at least one or two monks via CB that it is far superior to Nancy Walsh's first book Learning Perl/Tk.

--Jim