I was an experienced programmer before I saw any Perl. I started learning Perl when I couldn't put up with the difficiencies of AWK any longer. I had previous experience of C and bash so there was a lot of Perl I was familier with (and lots more I wasn't). The Perl Cookbook was a book I could dip into, and learn what I needed to learn, without being bogged down being told things I already knew.

Every learner is different and the Cookbook was spot on for this learner.