'Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days' covers the basics in the first few chapters, and then moves on to practical uses of Perl and in-depth discussions of more advanced topics. Perl is a popular programming language typically used in Unix systems.

Other Perl books assume C programming experience and a great deal of programming knowledge and sophistication. This tutorial starts with basic concepts and builds upon them. Each chapter contains a Q&A section, summary, quiz, and a series of exercises which allow readers to practice using the language features they have just learned.

Ruby is a high-level, fully object-oriented programming (OOP) language. It is very powerful and relatively easy to learn, read, and maintain. Sams Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days provides the best introduction to this language and addresses one of the key constraints it faces: "The paucity of quality English-language documentation is one of the few things holding Ruby back from widespread adoption," according to Dr. Curtis Clifton of Iowa State University¿s Department of Graduate Computer Science.

This guide teaches readers how to design and implement their an open source database. Topics include designing and creating a database; normalizing data; adding tables, columns and indexes; importing and exporting data; administering, optimizing and troubleshooting My SQL; and locks and keys.

A guide to ASP and IIS fundamentals covers dynamic content, interactivity, writing files on the Web server, personalizing content, reading databases, and debugging scripts.

.NET Windows Forms are a new programming paradigm introduced with Microsoft's .NET initiative. Windows Forms are very similar to Web Forms, which allow programmers to build complex Web application interfaces easily, sharing the same underlying framework and programming concepts. Windows Forms, however, are used for the Win32 platform, instead of the Internet, and allow programmers to build traditional Windows desktop-based applications structured around .NET. Sams Teach Yourself .NET Windows Forms in 21 Days covers all the major aspects of Windows Forms necessary to build professional, functional applications. This book follows the tried-and-tested 21 Days tutorial model to guide the reader through Windows Forms. It features code examples and tips for programmers migrating from pre-Windows Forms Microsoft technologies. The reader will be introduced to the many controls available for .NET Windows Forms and how to build them, learn how to create events and event handlers, explore ADO.NET and methods to retrieve data from dynamic data sources, and learn how to take advantage of the Internet and Internet Explorer from their .NET Windows Forms applications. As readers advance through the tutorials, they progress toward more advanced topics and projects by creating simple graphical applications and enhancing existing ones, learn how to integrate with other .NET applications, use Web services, build Windows services, build Windows Forms controls, create multi-threaded applications, work with COM and COM+ configure and deploy .NET Windows Forms, and how to de-bug .NET Windows Forms.

Think of all the things you could do in 24 hours. Go sightseeing. Read a book. Learn PHP. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours is a unique learning tool that is divided into 24 one-hour lessons over five sections. Starting with the basics, you will discover the fundamentals of PHP and how to apply that knowledge to create dynamic websites with forms, cookies and authentication functions. You will also find out how to access databases, as well as how to integrate system components, e-mail, LDAP, network sockets and more. A support website includes access to source code, PHP updates, errata and links to other relevant websites. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours is a quick and easy way to learn how to create interactive websites for your end user.