• Does he know what GLOBS are?
• Does he know how my/local are different?
• What are his feelings on until/unless?
• or the difference between && and and and || and or? (;D)

Is he an intern or something?

What did he do to get the job?

I suggest you make him read perldata, perlref, perldoc -f ref, and then perldsc perlreftut perllol every day until he gets it.

Once you learn perldata/perlref, there is very little mystery left in complicated datastructures (i feel most anybody with half a brain , and half an hour, can learn all about perldata/perlref with the help of somebody who knows it all ).

perldata/perlref are as essential as perlsyn (and dare I say, perlre, even perlre is advanced any which way you look at it, but at least knowing how to employ m// and s/// are not).

update:
If your dude knows all about arrays/hashes/scalars, point him to References quick reference and let's see if he don't learn it in half an hour.

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** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.