Recommend an E-book Meeting the Following Criteria (Newbie, Long)

[andypurshottam at gmail.com]

I reccomend David Mertz's text:
http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/
Despite name its more that just text processing, he uses
"modern" (ie, 20 - 30 years old) style of programming in examples,
often using  library packages, especially parsing tools. Online version
is free, but you can pay him buy buying the p-book. Has short examples
that can be tried out from command line.